


Your Life Is Not Yours To Choose

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Anger Management, BAMF Mrs. Hudson, Crying, Depression, Disability, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Female Character of Color, Homeless Network, Homelessness, Homophobia, Hospitals, John Is Not A Very Good Doctor, M/M, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Mind Palace, Original Disabled Character, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, PTSD Sherlock, Parental Mrs. Hudson, Past Abuse, Paternal Lestrade, Protective Lestrade, Protective Mycroft, Self-Esteem Issues, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, Suicidal Sherlock, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The Great Hiatus, Trans Male Character, White Privilege
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14047590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: "Your life is not your own.""Your life is not yours to choose."Two alternate people from a multitude of different worlds, and yet the same.On January 29, 2016, Sherlock Holmes tries to commit suicide by jumping into the Thames before being saved by a young woman he met by chance. The wounds by John Watson in the morgue only remind the Sherlock of his failed self, and of the deep deception that succeeded in protecting his true self from the other people: a self-medicating addict, prone to depression, suicidal thoughts, and low self-esteem. He knows that he has always been a fuck up."I know what's like to be treated like that."Since the morgue, his body remembers even if his mind wants to forget and blame it on himself. For some reason, Sherlock Holmes is afraid of John Watson, even as he still desperately loves him. And John Watson doesn't understand what he did wrong.It seems that the only person who understands is the woman who is trying to save him.But do they all, all these actors in this tragedy, want to endure the journey in order to live again?





	1. Prologue

                                                                      _Prologue_

        

The man stared at what he was supposed to be seeing on the screen. Every detective instinct screamed at him in a Sherlock-like voice to _pay attention, you waste of brain cells!_ But his eyes, grey and disbelieving with pupils dilated, could not seem to understand what was in front of him.

 _Did you know that the colours we see are only a trick of the mind?_ A voice echoed in his mind. Strangely enough, it seemed to be a hint of an exasperation in the tone. Similar to – No. Too dangerous of a thought. _There are no actual colours, just like a fake magic trick –_

_Maybe this is all it is. That has to be. There’s no way – no way that –_

__“Just a magic trick.”_ _

A hollow gasp almost tore from his parched throat, a need inside of him to do _something_. To do anything that what he was doing at this moment, that took away every shred of his pride as one of –

 “Sir.”

The sound of the title – _his_ title – caused him to involuntary stiffen, his eyes too tense to blink as the sudden deflated grey-haired man focused his dull eyes on the screen.

“DI Lestrade?”

Strange. She had not called him that in years. Not since –

There was not a hint of a sound, nor of a shiver of a movement. The empty barren room – that was supposed to be an interrogation bloody room, for crying out loud! – was dank and withering in despair, as if it could sense the aura of the humans in the room. There was only one light above the three individuals in the room.

One was a slightly older woman, with darker skin and curly hair in small ringlets. She held herself in a manner that was hard to pinpoint, her mouth a thin line as if in disapproval that matched her professional clothes. The other was a younger woman, with the same length of hair but straight and dark brown. She held a stack of manila folders in her arms, tightening them against her chest. The papers, materials, whatever they were – looked as if she squeezed them hard enough, it would designate into ash. Her eyes were wide, her face more wan than the experienced DI had seen her when looking at the weird and gore-splattered crime scene photos she and – _him_ seemed to love.

For her, it was about justice, about the victims.

For _him_ …he didn’t know.

DI Gregory Lestrade, more than two decades of police work under his skin, continued to stare blankly at the screen.

What was he supposed to be seeing? _Oh,_ an unhelpful voice supplied in his dull, ever dull mind. _You know this is true._

__Look._ _

___Can’t you see?_ _ _

The image was frozen. It was stopped on his orders. It was odd. He didn’t even remember what his voice sounded like when he saw…that. _I can’t…_ Greg resisted the impulse to run his hands through his hair. _This isn’t real._

__"You see, but you don't observe."_ _

___But it is._ _ _

___Swallowing heavily, his hands slightly curling into fists by his side at the sight of the stopped image before his face, the DI of Scotland Yard stated,_ _ _

“Replay it.”

It didn’t sound like his voice. It was too quiet, too reedy –

“Sir?”

The question in her voice caused a sudden surge of anger.

“Replay it, Donovan!”

And so it played from the beginning. Greg’s entire heart broke at the state of Sherlock Holmes. He was thin – emaciated, really, with tell-tale signs of drug addiction. A lump formed in his throat, reminding him of – the deep end that he had found one Sherlock Holmes. He didn’t know that moment would change his life, or of how it would change others. The junkie kid had…returned, heartbreakingly and devastatingly so. It surprised Greg that he felt this deeply.

As if a part of his soul had chipped away with every second of the recording.

Still felt it, as if ten years since he had met him had not lapsed.

Had not changed anything, and yet…

Only this time, it was worse.

So much worse.

At the end of the recording, Donavon cleared her throat.

“So…sir…” Her voice had faded from the concerned demeanor she had held when the recording at first played. There was no sound in the video. Therefore, no understanding whatsoever what was being said or why this happened.

“What do you want to do?”

“We go after him, of course.” Greg Lestrade should have been stunned by of how calm his voice sounded, as if inching rage was sinking hot into his abdomen.

“But it’s not our division –”

 A hoarse, terrible laughter tore from Greg’s mouth. Thankfully, none of his colleagues had any incentive to interrupt his strange madness.

He fell silent as quickly as the laughter had come, and Greg turned to both Sergeant Donavon and Constable Hopkins.

“If it has anything to do with Sherlock Holmes,” came the breathless whisper, “then it is _always_ our division.”


	2. 永遠な雪 (Eien Na Yuki)

                                                                 _Eien Na Yuki_

                                               

             There was no one near the bridge. The sky was dark, too dark to see the wisps of clouds that were visible hours before. If it had been summer, then the wind that blew would be called an alternate word: breeze. That single word was often associated with relief from the humidity and stifling heat during the long months of summer. However, in the dead of winter, the word wind was used.

                The wind, exactly like this moment, was brushing across the air similar to a hurricane. Its sharpness tore through the simple to the drastic clothing humans wore, a deep cold burning through the core of their bodies as the snow was moved from the ground to on their faces.

                Snow. Such a simple word as well. It was often associated with the start of winter, or in some cases, with purity. Due to the beginning of its pure whiteness, the word snow had a somewhat idealistic meaning.

                Many, too many people hated the snow, however.

                 _Yuki ga furu._

                That was why most of them stayed inside during the winter months.

                   _Yuki ga furu._

                The figure crouched, pulling their fingers in a curling motion as the snow dusted across their trousers. A tension was rising within them. _Breathe,_ the individual thought _. Breathe._ Eventually, the soothing language in their ears stopped singing, and the world fell silent.

                It usually took a long time for the thoughts and the language to cease. Sometimes, at certain instances, the individual would repeat the same word over and over, or write the same character in their mind.

                The figure lifted their face to the cold sky and sighed. It was not a happy sigh, or a sad one. It just was a release of carbon dioxide from the mouth into the air.

                Her fingers grew cold. It did not help that the air was as cold as freezing snow, and that her flat, or place of living, was situated kilometers away from the bridge. The bridge was not high. The water below was filled with ice.

                Why am I here?

                She didn’t know. Sometimes she wandered very early in the morning, seeing the deep coldness of winter for herself as she wandered the streets. Often wearing a heavy coat with nothing on her hands, the young woman would only go back when her fingers shook.

                She was not wearing a heavy coat now.

                Although childish, she wanted to feel something. Even the cold was better than feeling nothing.

                Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone. Halting her lungs, she peered behind the glasses that covered her eyes and looked at her companion.

                Why are you here?

                She of course recognized him. How could she not? In that area of congested restaurant with too many people, a moment of weakness, he had found her near the open counter.

                She was not supposed to stop. Always, walking two hours before going back to the barren bed, to her insufficient cats, and to the dreams that she never remembered.

                But she was weak.

                She was an idiot.

                So she decided to go into a restaurant that served food that she would likely never eat, seeing the serves and their smiles, and hearing everyone’s laughter and happiness that –

                She was shivering beside the warm counter. The warm heater was almost as close to a warm and gooey cream cheese frosting cinnamon bun.

                Then she saw him. It was the snow melting in his hair that she saw first. Why, she wondered, is that considered romantic? Several flakes of snow were melting against his wet curls, the dark strands so wet they were attached to his face. His skin was as pale as the snow that was in his hair – no, it was more like a sick pallor. He too had nothing on his hands, and they shook. Almost as if…

                His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her hazel eyes watched his, wondering of how he could have opened the door if his hands were in that state. A dark coat covered him, almost trailing behind as the man with snow-soaked curls walked toward her. It was only when he came closer did she see his face. Perhaps if she was a different kind of person, she would have immediately fallen in love. Sharp cheekbones were his most promoting features, with full lips and a tall stature.

                However, there was an aura around him that she knew.

                His blue eyes, perhaps once bright with emotion, were dimmed. She could see several small cuts around his cheeks, noting the last and most devastating part.

                Perhaps he wasn’t even aware of it. The sunken eyes and the bruising around his face and the way he subconsciously touched his abdomen, as it branded with a scar…all of them were signs.

                His hair was curling, like a strand of veins, around the back of his neck.

                She didn’t know why he approached her. Perhaps it was chance. Perhaps it was not.

                Sometimes people talk to people because they have no other choice.

                They each opened their individual mouths and spoke.

                Their conversation and been brief but fulfilling.

                She asked him why he was there.

                She didn’t expect and answer, but she also did not imagine that he would tell her the truth.

                What did he call it? Ah…yes, deducing.

                The young woman must have stunned him when she started to cry. Or perhaps his heart was so frozen that his expression was always dead and empty. Either way, her fingers brushed away her tears as she thanked him.

                Thank you, she whispered too quietly. For a brief moment, she looked down at her feet. I…haven’t been given the truth in a long time.

                He didn’t say anything.

                She asked him what he wanted to do.

                His blue eyes closed, and it was only then that she became aware of the extent of the injuries on his face. A long cut graced through his eyebrow, and several smaller cuts dotted along his forehead. Perhaps if she asked for him to remove his clothing, she would see an outline of a dark bruise against his rib.

                I want to know…what it is I’m trying to do.

                His whisper was hoarse, lacking hydration and use as his eyes emotionlessly wandered over the too-bright scenery.

                For a moment, his bearing looked as if he was going to fall. But he didn’t.

                The young woman didn’t ask what he meant by knowing what he was trying to accomplish.

                He left before she could ask.

                She watched his thin back as he opened the door, excruciatingly slow with his shaking hands, and went outside into the cold.

                Still, she did not imagine that she would find him near the Thames.

                Her entire breath left her. He was too close to the edge of the bridge. No, she thought, her mind crumbling as her knees straightened before she began to run. No, no, no.

                Flashes of memory danced along the fringes of her mind. She was running as fast as she possibly could, risking of slipping on black ice as her feet propelled her forward.

              He was going to fall. No. He was going to extinguish his life from the empty husk of his body.

              It came too early. She was too clumsy.

_Idiot. Idiot. Idiot._

_Why…?_ Tears, so easily, came running down her face. They were almost warm, comforting the stupid body that she had with some semblance of emotion. _Why…?_ She almost asked the question out loud.

            Her entire form covered his. It wasn’t very romantic. It wasn’t even truly safe.

            But for a reason unknown to her, both of the dying beings that they were stilled on the floor.

            If not for a small sound echoing from her lips.

            A choking sob tore from her unused mouth. Her eyes were too blurry from tears to see clearly. Perhaps some of the tears were falling on him. If she had been normal, she would have abruptly stood and profusely apologized.

           _“Doushite…?”_   Her voice came from her, breathless and tragic. _“Doushite…sonna koto wo shiteiru…”_

           There was no answer. His eyes were blue, as empty as dead veins that continued to stubbornly live despite the wishes of their vessel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 永遠な雪 - Eternal Snow  
> Yuki ga furu. - It is snowing.  
> “Doushite…sonna koto wo shiteiru…” - Why are you doing something like this?


	3. Lemon Cakes and Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEED TRIGGER WARNINGS.

                                                                        _Lemon Cake and Tears_

 

Sherlock Holmes was alone in the flat after John Watson’s steps floated away in his mind.

John’s tears had soaked through the fabric of his dark blue dressing gown, leaving the imprint of him there. Embedding with the fabric, twisting within the complex fibers, as if it would Sherlock’s last memory of him.

The thought came unbidden. _His last memory of John Watson._ Holding him in his arms, speechless as John Watson sobbed in his arms. Sherlock thought perhaps that John would have mentioned of how the taller man had rested his exhausted head on John’s.

_I love you._

Why did he indulge in that moment of…despair? Of intimacy that did not feel real? As if he was looking for something, even with the same person who – did that to him.

_I love you._

_To be reminded that he was still living._

That there was still a person, a human being in there, somehow.

_A friend needed my help. It is socially acceptable to embrace them as your dressing gown becomes covered in unsanitary fluids._

His hand started to tremble again. Why? It was a simple touch, and he wanted to –

An abrupt, hard gasp tore through his damaged trachea as the reality of John’s fists reached his skin, sharp pain agonizing in every cell. The punches didn’t seem to care as they damaged his face. _He was on the floor. He was on the floor of the cold, hard surface, and it started out as a dull throbbing sensation before turning into a white-hot agony as his kidney was kicked. He had no time to react as John continued to kick his stomach. A silent cry would have fallen from his lips if it had been three years ago. But this was now. John continued to kick him, the agony spiking into a hot, boiling sensation. His ribs were not spared. The hard surface of the morgue hurt his back, hurt everything that was screaming in pain as John Watson was suddenly pulled off of him._

_"Yes. You did.”_

__Oh, for bloody –_ Sherlock ran as best as limping could allow as he quivered in front of the basin of the sink and retched._

A burning sensation tore his esophageal lining, as if it was telling his stupid transport that he needed to void food. It was painful. Every retch tore at the…bruises he now had, and Sherlock felt such an abrupt dizziness that he almost fell on the floor.

 _Does John know that I threw up the cake he bought after coming back?_ No, of course not. John Watson was currently basking in the guilt-free admissions he had told Sherlock before sobbing into the consulting detective’s arms. He didn’t know of how it took Sherlock every effort to not shake as he held the sobbing man, and to not say anything as the younger was handed a slice of lemon cake with cheap vanilla frosting for his _birthday_. There was supposed to be a party, but with everyone else being involved in the pedestrian activities revolving around the _interviews_ and _case_ files involving Culverton Smith, only John and Sherlock came to the required destination.

And Sherlock didn’t even _want_ to celebrate his birthday. What was there to celebrate for? What good was it to celebrate a day that reminded him that he still existed?

Was the lemon cake cheap too? It would certainly explain John’s sudden need for smiles and the utterly obtuse celebration of Sherlock’s birthday. It wasn’t like John. John hated parties and celebrations. That was what shocked Sherlock that John said nothing during the preparation for his wedding. Even if it felt that the burning thing that was his heart continued to die inside as he painstakingly planned, John – his John, had simply stared in Sherlock in confusion at his enthusiasm for his wedding.

_"Not a sociopath after all.”_

After John had left, after waving goodbye at the sulking man with all of his cake eaten, Sherlock later found himself hours later by the toilet, racked by such vicious vomiting and shaking that Mrs. Hudson had knocked on his door, terrified of what she might see. When she found him, shaking and holding the toilet bowl as if holding the answers, the woman who declared herself to be not-their-housekeeper helped him to stand and looked at him with such sad eyes Sherlock wanted to snarl, but could not find the energy to do so.

 _Why am I afraid?_ It had no logical standing. Sherlock had been alone the last time he had detoxed. In his early twenties, he had been locked in a room with only a pot to piss in when Lestrade had forced him on detoxing. There was no pompous arseholes wanting to cage him, with only a _tsk_ aimed at his direction from his deplorable behavior. So then why did he feel alone?

Why did it feel like it would be better that he was dead, than this useless waste of misery?

His shaking only became worse as the hours turned into night. Sherlock was shaking so badly that he couldn’t even move. So in bed he stayed. Underneath the sheets, as if they could heal the emptiness in his mind. Emptiness. Usually, he would experience such a mundane feeling as joy, but there was nothing.

There was…nothing.

There was such a risk of an emptiness so deep that people would not be able to feel anything. Only a husk remained of the body it inhabited, dying inside not from boredom, but of sheer depression of the chemicals in the brain. It tore inside his wounded body, exacerbated the dead feeling inside that he had felt for weeks and weeks.

There was only his body, selfishly wanting to prolong what was inevitable.

He was always crying. The liquid seeping from his eyes didn’t seem to stop. It almost caused his heart to stop when Mrs. Hudson had found him the next morning, dried tears streaked on his face as he remained immobile in the last place she had seen him in.

 _No. Don’t._ Sherlock would have sneered at his weakness when Mrs. Hudson’s fingers brushed against his cheek. Too gentle. Too soft. _Why?_ He flinched against the stillness of his limbs, and shut his eyes from the pity that would filter across her face. _No. No. No, no, no –_

__NONONO…Nooo!_ _

She didn’t say a word. She didn’t mention of how Sherlock would often leave her knocks unanswered. It didn’t seem to bother her that tears would stream from his eyes as if he was no longer in control of his emotions, and the strange lack of anything in his voice when he said that the tears were symptoms of cocaine withdrawal. It was her that came up to 221B, and held the cup of glass as she forced him to drink water. _“Hydration, Sherlock. It won’t do your body any good to rust away like that, young man.”_ She did see the bruises. The hand marks around his neck. The older woman seemed to not blink when she had seen the purple-blue bruise near his hips, where John had…

It didn’t matter.    

Nothing did.

Sherlock forced himself to say nothing as Mrs. Hudson slowly washed his face, and gently applied shaving cream. He didn’t ask. It was supposed to be an intimate moment. No one, not even John, had shaved for him before. His hands were still shaking so much Sherlock would have made his face bloody if he had tried to shave on his own. The warm water soothed him. The smooth strokes of the shaver calmed him, if being calm meant the agonizing emptiness stilling. He didn’t understand of why Mrs. Hudson was so gentle with him, as if the dark-haired man he was would break if she made a nick on his cheek. The water was on his cheeks and face then, washing away the stubble he had for a number of weeks. _“Look at you,”_ Mrs. Hudson murmured, her face crinkling into a smile as Sherlock softly mimicked her, and with fakery smiled back. _“Look at this young man smiling at me.”_

It didn’t take any amount of effort of his intellect to know that Mrs. Hudson had cried that night.

He didn’t know why she was crying for him. It was Sherlock’s fault, Sherlock’s damn arrogance and insensitivity that caused his withdrawal and bruises on his body.

John was right. He had only done what he had to do.

The responsibility belonged to him.

Not John Watson.

It was only after the visit, after John had sobbed his heart into his arms, that Sherlock had realized that there was a way to make this mental anguish – searing, numbing, white-hot anguish that withered everything inside of him – to cease.

His body seemed to know that he was going to die. Even though Molly said he had only weeks left, the constant abuse of drugs in his system were gone. However, there was the same bridge where he had met Faith, the daughter of Culverton Smith that could, if correctly applied, have the same conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is likely going to be the last chapter I will update so quickly. This chapter was very difficult to write. I have never written in Sherlock's POV with this mindset, so please tell me if I need to improve.


	4. For Ordinar People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR LOW SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-HATRED, SUICIAL THOUGHTS, AND SUICIDE ATTEMPT.

_For Ordinary People_

 

Why was he in this place? Six years ago, Sherlock would have scorned even the thought of entering the place surrounded and _engulfed_ by so many people. It was nauseating, of how people were content to be in such a small space for something as boring and mundane as food and comfort for one another.

It was a place for ordinary people.

For people…

Sherlock’s hands were shaking badly by this time of the day. He didn’t quite understand it, this devastating tremors going through his entire hands as if they had been through physical trauma. But it wasn’t. It…was…simple drug withdrawal.

Mindlessly and scathingly simple.

Why was he even in such a place? And _why_ , after so many years, did he have questions that he had the answers to? The world was never so lazy. Nor was he. That was why he came back, again and again, like a…endless cycle of the abyss.

That’s how Sherlock thought of it as, anyway. Whatever _it_ was. It hurt too much now to give it a name. Inwardly, his breath hitched and his teeth clattered to stop the shout from tearing from his throat. _“Oh, Sherlock. You’ll never be like them. And you’ll never be like me. Why do you insist on being so…boring?”_

Fear embedded in his body as if it possessed a physical form and suffocated whatever breath he had left. It was as if Sherlock was a young child of seven again, his large and strange eyes almost hidden by the thick waves of his dark brown curls. It was as if Sherlock was seeing Mycroft’s ever-disapproving face and eyes on him again, judging, always thinking of something disgusting about his annoying baby brother’s behavior. Strange. Sherlock hadn’t heard his brother’s voice affect him like this in over ten years. And back then, of how Mycroft was absolutely right about him. Of how he was always right about everything. Sherlock knew that the reason why he came to this restaurant full of people was because it had the façade of being with people. And because it was warm. The warmth seemed to ache the bruises along Sherlock’s body, especially the one –

His entire body, exhausted and aching from the current detox, become strung like a dying violin. He tried to not think about his bruises that much. Although they hurt with vivid authenticity, Sherlock had tried to not allow Mrs. Hudson to see his marks. It proved useless when she stubbornly insisted on shaving him, as if simply leaving him alone would be the correct decision. She didn’t ask about the bruises, when she saw the large, purplish and blue hand prints around his neck. Sherlock did not say anything, either. His eyes remained upward, ignoring the exhaustion at his fingertips and the tension increasing along his spine. Sherlock had felt – terrified that she would say something. He wished then that the towels he once used to wash his body would cover that place of his body now. _Don’t say anything,_ a wild, dangerous fear climbing in his cardiovascular system, until it felt that he couldn’t take a breath. _Don’t say anything, Mrs. Hudson._ Sherlock resisted the impulse to increase the volume inside his head, as he had…before. _Why is every molecule of work that I persisted in, falling away?_

Sherlock couldn’t truly remember of what Mrs. Hudson had said. The abrupt amnesia of that particular memory, instead of vexing his mind to the point of self-destruction, instead made his body and mind sag in relief. The warmth melted at his fingertips, and Sherlock almost forgot the weakness of his body that persisted before John had…had –

_No. Don’t think of that._ Instead, Sherlock focused on the window. The snow was falling. It hadn’t snowed when he and John had first met. It was not uncommon for Sherlock to think about the time he and John had first met. Was the first time the first consulting detective heard that mellow voice the first indication of his inescapable love for the man who he didn’t even know? Many times in his Mind Palace, Sherlock thought about the conversation he and John had at Angelo’s. How young they were. And what a fool Sherlock was. A part of him was desperate to hold onto the gentle and damaged face that was John Hamish Watson of 2010 and sob. Why did it hurt so much?

Why, why…did it _hurt_ as if his entire body wasn’t even alive anymore, that every second it felt as if Sherlock should have decomposed in Serbia, his body tortured and mangled behind recognition…and that every action that John had done to him was justified?

_“…will complete you, as a human being.”_

_I…am a truly human? Do I really have such things as emotions, now? Before, I would have followed illegal protocols to soothe this idea of mine. Emotions. Feelings, the most dangerous ideas to follow, for they only brought sentiment and rejection. Mundane, feelings that ordinary people have._

Sherlock should have seen her before. If it was because his mind was slow and engulfed in his own thoughts that he didn’t see her. Or perhaps it was because the normal people were obnoxious in their intent at annoying anyone only wanting warmth and quiet, and loneliness. Even from where he was standing, Sherlock could tell the figure was half the height of his own. _John would be tall compared to her,_ Sherlock thought before he could stop himself. He focused on the figure standing beside the old-fashioned heaters embedded in the floor in order to keep his thoughts contained. The length of her dark brown, almost black, hair reached down to her neck. A thin dark blue coat covered her mid-section, she wore loose, light blue pants. Despite the weather, the young woman wore hideous trainers. Sherlock stared with vague disinterest at the corners of white socks visible through large holes along the trainers’ sides. She was not looking at him. Her dark brown eyes, complete with long eyelashes and lighter brown freckles along her skin, were observing the people around her. They were ordering their food, laughing and drinking, oblivious to the fact that another person was observing them and that there was a person with a significant mental health difficulties in their presence.

Still, even when he was across from her, the young woman didn’t move. Her eyes seemed to be fixated on the people oblivious to her observance. Then,

“Who are you?”

“Do you want to know, or this another prevalent type of politeness that society is supposed to implement on people?”

She didn’t reply. Her voice was flat, and empty of everything as his own. As if only an empty husk of a broken shell, with its pieces scattered and shattered to the ground. It was warmer over here. The warmth was almost able to convince him that the only reason why Sherlock was talking to this goldfish was to deduce them.

“You are in your early twenties.” Inside of text found of the computer, chalk appeared in Sherlock’s mind to write the deduction. The noise scraped inside his ears, grating them, and making them bleed. He couldn’t understand the reason of how his Mind Palace and deductions changed when he was…like this, high or otherwise. _“Perhaps this is an indication that you should no longer pursue such…activities, Sherlock.” SHUP UP!_ “Have two cats, approximately similar fur colors. A former – no, a graduated undergraduate student from an American university. Why American? The brand of your jeans are least expensive in the United States as opposed to Europe. After graduating, despite many years struggling with your mental health, you came here, to London.” She was looking at him now. There was no anger, or rising rage as many other people that Sherlock deduced. He could not pinpoint what she was feeling as she looked at him. “You are…fleeing from something, someone that made you think that you were better off not living. Who was it? _Oh…_ no, not your boyfriend. You never had one, although you did fall in love.

“The person you loved was an older student, ten years older than you, but you didn’t care. He brought you the happiness that you had, and the kindness and love that you craved because it wasn’t there in the place called _home_. But you had a broken heart and had multiple thoughts of suicide because…he was married to another man, and couldn’t…love…you…”

_Oh…_ Sherlock felt such revulsion that fought the urge to not violently vomit. Self-hatred, mirroring the hated stares and slurs that he heard all his life haunted and almost burned a bleeding wound in his mind. His mouth was frozen. Although the words…whatever came to his mouth, echoed in his throat, Sherlock felt that he couldn’t move. _Oh. God._ He promised himself long ago that he wouldn’t do _this_ anymore. Not since John –

_Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me ALONE! Leavemealone.Leavemealone. LEAVEMEALONE!!_

The girl – because that was who he was – was smiling at him. The tilting of her lips burned in his retinas, although Sherlock didn’t understand. Why? Why was she smiling at him? _Why was she - ?_ Her two hands were pressed together, against her lips. Tears followed the downward path, almost looking like a stream.

“Thank you…” she whispered. Relief poured through her voice. He could see her face more clearly, of how her eyes slightly crinkled when a smile appeared on her face, and of how the slightly titling motion was somewhat adjusted. “You’re…the only one…” soft cries emerged from her throat, tearing at the forgotten pulp of the heart inside Sherlock. “The only one…who said that to me…” Smiled at him, a true relief going across her face, as if he was the one who saved her from her loneliness. “The truth…you didn’t _lie_ to me…I haven’t heard that in a long time…”

The look of loss and desperation, and the history he had just told her, wounded Sherlock. It was only then, her face calm now and beginning to form words, of why Sherlock was so affected by this person’s emotions. She was him. If ten years were erased, another person would be looking at him and seeing the same person he was seeing now. Only, Sherlock had been different from her as well. His face had been different. Drug addicted, polluted with drugs and –

One of the reasons why he had to lie was to pretend that everything was okay. Looking at the young girl now, Sherlock didn’t truly understand. Why was he here? What did it matter what he wanted in this life? Why was she being so kind to him? The thought of the kindness she had given him made him want to pull out his dark, bleeding heart and leave it out to die and to be feasted on by the carrion. He felt sickened to the core. The only thing he was useful for was emptiness to him now. What did it truly matter now, that John no longer wanted to be around him.

John.

John.

_Why am I still here?_ Sherlock was not asking the question to anyone, not even to himself. He knew what was true. That Mrs. Hudson loved him, for reasons he didn’t understand. The Met and Lestrade hated him, and he was only good to them when he gave them something they wanted. Mycroft…he would be joyous to be relieved of his duties. So joyous he would be eating a three tier cake in one sitting. Molly would one day be happy. She should be, after all the terrible actions and manipulations Sherlock had done to her. And John…

Sherlock should have never come back to London. Without him, John would have been happy. Happy without Sherlock. He would have had Mary, who had been murdered due to Sherlock’s stupidity and arrogance. And Rosie…she would never know her mother, and her father was absent due to Sherlock’s mistakes that he could never undue. It didn’t matter that Sherlock had fallen in love with him. His love was toxic, his presence destroying anything and everything good and right in his path until nothing remained. Just despair and depression.

He should have stayed dead. Instead of Moriarty pointing the gun at him, he should have pointed the gun at Sherlock and completed what Sherlock had done in the first place. Why was he thinking about John's letter now? It wasn't as if it had the desired effect. John had said...

* * *

 

_Flashes of memory danced along the fringes of her mind. She was running as fast as she possibly could, risking of slipping on black ice as her feet propelled her forward._

_He was going to fall. No. He was going to extinguish his life from the empty husk of his body._

_It came too early. She was too clumsy._

_And then..._

* * *

 And then Sherlock Holmes fell into the water below.

 

_“We live with perceptions of what is reality. If one denies the existence of such an event, or reimages it, then it becomes true. Nothing that humans remember can be trusted because they are the sentient beings most wanting to rewrite their past.”_

_I read that quote in a book once._

_I was eleven, still unware of what was to become of me, and still basking in my mother’s love. I cannot claim I know Sherlock Holmes. I saw him one night that day he tried to commit suicide. Many years have passed since that night, and I still cannot claim to truly know him. We are different people now. I know that to be true. Sherlock, Abel, and I…are different from who we were when we met._

_The only one who claims to know Sherlock, more than himself, is John Watson._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Isobel imagined stopping Sherlock's suicide attempt two chapters ago. How much can you trust this new character?


	5. 遠海 (Enkai) Deep Sea

She knew that he was going to jump. _Into the ocean with the dark waters that are as dark as night, and swallow you until you are nothing._ The young woman knew that the man, whoever he was, was going to kill himself. So why?

Why did she not do anything as she heard the splash of the water below? _Doushite…watashi koko ni ittieru?_ Why, she asked herself in English this time, was she here? As her fingers became cold as the snow – pure white with a soft brush against the skin – pelted against the world, her body moved before her heart did.

“999 Operator. What is your emergency?” The voice coming from the receiver was quiet but calm. The mobile was already wet as it lied against her ear. For some reason, the snow continued to land on her ears.

“Someone…” Laced with anxiety, and fear – yes, fear again – the young woman found it hard to speak. She could barely move her mouth to form the words, when a harsh screaming burned inside of her mind. “He jumped into the Thames.” Distant, trembling, and incoherent, almost. She had not spoken to anyone for a very long time. It was as if she was in an emergency situation, and trying to explain what happened when not knowing the language. She supposed it was similar. So many…people understood how to communicate their words and feelings. Other people gravitated towards others, as if they were an edible drug that eased the loneliness of the self-bruising of the ego. Of the things that she w _as_ interested in, no one was able to understand. Or they pretended to understand.

She thought back to the man now committing suicide. He was now alone. More alone that he thought he would be, in death. Or perhaps that it what the dark-haired man with the kind heart wished. At least…he was able to tell her the truth about herself that no one was able to see. She had very little interaction with people, but when she did, they seemed all easily fooled by her smiles.

“Please…!” Dragging out her breath, the girl was stunned to find her voice increasing in volume. She was looking down at the bellowing sea below, and could not see anything. “We’re at the bridge...!”

It made no matter that the person on the line was attempting to calm her down. _He was…_ She thought about the sadness of his eyes. Although they eyes remained bright, that was only a cruel and beautiful façade. She knew those eyes…for they belonged to her as well. So empty, agonized in pain and in life. She knew the reason why he was in that restaurant for other people. She knew of why he wandered to this area. Why they were both wanderers. She knew what it was like to feel such suffocating emptiness that it was better to do something, _anything_ than to plunge a sharp knife into your abdomen. Existing within the abyss of emptiness, wishing that that the breath you took would be your last. Numb to the every second of every day. As if a cloak of agonizing emptiness attached to them, taking out all the joy and emotion of actually living. Nothing would allow them the relief…the relief, bliss of feeling calm and nothing of the emptiness before. That was happiness. Of simply knowing and accepting that you existed.

 _He_ saw _me…_ She was crying. Her head bowed, as if heavy from the emotion she was feeling, as tears trailed from her eyes, and as her mouth opened in a soundless scream. In both agony and happiness. _He saw me…of who I was…and –_

“That’s…too late…” she whispered into the mobile, a cold grasp of fear surrounding her abdomen as the operator reassured her that an ambulance would be there soon. “He’ll b-be…” Her eyes squeezed shut, agony coming in waves and not subsiding as the black-haired young woman attempted to breathe. A deep pain was growing inside of her, clenching her lungs and heart. Almost physical, it surrounded her mind at the thought of the man she met hours before. _I have to…_

_I have to…_

Her mobile clattered to the ground as she let it go. Shakily, the young woman climbed on top of the bridge. She did not look down. Her legs shook, and her breath shuttered in gasps. _It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay._

The young woman, who had spent most of her twenty-two years outside of the water besides the rare excursions at the beach, almost screamed once her skin felt the water. The entire body of her cells writhed and screamed from the intensity of the deep cold. It was so cold that it almost felt warm, inches of sharp needles piercing her face, half relenting the urge to scrape it off. The agony from the deep cold continued to increase. An agonized scream wanted to fall from her throat, but she was currently underwater. The needles embedded, became her eyes from the intensity of the cold. But the agony was nothing compared to his. She had to find him.

She was barely below the water. But she continued to swim deeper despite her clumsy and weak strokes. She could barely see. Even with this limited of energy she had, her arms were becoming weak with the heaviness of pain and the volume of water. _Oh…my lungs are tired already. How can I…_

Her eyes were almost closed, and her lungs were starting to weaken. Against her body’s will, she continued to swim, in vain for something beyond her abilities to. She had never been very good at swimming. That was why she preferred land; no way to lose your way in the stable ground, as opposed to water, and the cold that came with it. The pain was starting to become warm again. Her lungs were dying. She needed to take a breath, exchange the carbon dioxide for oxygen despite needing to go forward. _Please…_ she thought. _Please…_

It took a long time for Isobel to find him. Not only were her eyes almost swollen shut, but she was losing her sense of reality in this watery hell. Her lungs needed air, and her head was spinning. Dizziness was spreading around her body. It was dark. And yet, when she found him, floating in the watery prison as if nothing mattered anymore, she was only able to grab onto him by embracing him.

Her fingers and hands wrapped around his abdomen, her neck buried in his shoulder. She didn’t truly know how she was going to be able to rise them both up in the surface, but this was the only way she thought of holding onto him. Isobel could see that the man who had spoken to truth to her had allowed himself to die in a long, painful way. In a way that… _No,_ the young woman thought. She was scared. She was so scared of the fact that he might have succeeded that she began to roughly swim forward, his body heavy against her own. She could barely move. A gasp fore from her mouth before the dark-haired young woman could deny her lungs the blissful oxygen, but instead swallowed the cold water that was her enemy. Choking and trying not to breathe even more of the water, Isobel tried to swim forward. She tried. It was so hard. _I have to…_ Her mind shattered as she saw the faint sun appearing to darken, going away as she desperately tried to swim forward. _I have to…_

Her lungs were filling with water now. Her arms were becoming lead, too heavy to lift or even swim. The man was heavy too. She didn’t know if it was possible to save him and not herself. And why, now, did she have the desire to live?

 _Mammy…_ she thought. Isobel supposed that it was alright if her mother came in her last thoughts, since was about to die. It was odd. She didn’t think she would feel this calm, staring at the reflection of the sun. It was beyond her reach. Just like her. But instead of a comforting memory, like of her beloved childhood, the memories of young adulthood remained.

_“Is this what you do? Push away the people you love until you fuck them up?”_

_どうして事を話されるか。_

_痛い。_ She was able to push her arms forward. It hurt. 痛い。痛い。

痛い。痛い。痛い。痛い。 _い_ _た_ _い…イタイ_ _It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. ITHURTS. Ithurtsithurtsithurtssss._

Everything hurt. Her eyes, her entire soul hurt into what only remained was a shattered sense of self. A harsh, choking gasp filled the cold winter air. Rough coughs followed, the water making her clothes feel like a second skin. Her arms still clutched the man’s body, and despite the exhaustion that pulled at her, she stared at him. His dark curls were plastered around his forehead. Too-pale skin stretched along his cheekbones. His lips were blue. Horror grew as she realized that his skin was turning grey. _No. No._ Deep purple and blue bruises were scattered around his face, one surrounding his eye, forehead, and neck. A sharp pain entered Isobel, even if she didn’t truly know this person. W _ho did this to you?_ His clothes were almost connected to his skin. It was if the pain that he wished to erase become more as he neared death.

It was almost ironic. As she glanced towards the sky, looking at the atmosphere above, the girl with dark brown hair realized that despite the agonizing pain she had through, and multiple thoughts of ending her life, she in fact, did not want to die.

Not now. And she was more near death than any of the other times.

A siren echoed in the world. The young woman had no time to feel relief, or even exhaustedly happy. She was still holding onto the man’s form as her head was against his neck.

Her body was exhausted. She couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer from the pain, and her body spasmed with agony. _生きたい…_ she pleaded with herself against the current blackness corroding against her eyes. 理由の生きてるの意味…がある。 _私_ _…_

But her body, traumatized by doing so much, by living as opposed to preparing to die, caused her world to fall into black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> どうして事を話されるか。(Doushite koto wo hanasaeru ka – Why do you say such things to me?  
> 痛い (Itai) －It hurts.  
> 生きたい (Ikitai) – I want to live.  
> 理由の生きてるの意味…を見つけた。私… (Riyuu no ikiteru no imi wo mitsuketa. Watashi… ) – I have found a reason reason for living. I…


	6. Not Dead Until Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An A&E doctor treats Sherlock.

Helem Hijazi struggled to keep his arms upright and his feet from crumbling underneath him. _Thirty hours, and still no sleep,_ the A&E physician thought blearily as the room blurred at the edges of his vision. His mind idly flashed to the harrowing days when he was in the land of his birth, when blood used to soak the hospital scrubs he and the ill-equipped medical staff they would wear, trying in vain to stop the bleeding when there was no bandages, no morphine, or a hastily used scalpel – of how, so many people would be rushed in a make-shift ambulance to the hospital, carried as they cried out in pain as their relatives looked at their thought-to-be angels with an unspoken plea in their eyes.

Helem still remembered what it was like to work in a room determined by if generators worked, and of ways of how to make the materials they had, last until the last patient was dead. A body of a child, a little girl of two years old with her head spilt open with brain matter dripping into her hysterical mother’s hajib. She had curly hair, in little ringlets that were stained in the dark liquid as her pink t-shirt with a castle on the front was covered in dust.

Helem had to tell the mother – he had forgot her name, among so many others – that her child was dead. She had been dead the moment she found her, and the work of carrying her child through a warzone, was for nothing but more heartache.

“Hijazi, are you alright?”

Helem snapped out of his memories of the blood-splattered sand of Syria and looked to see his colleague, Alice Uzuki, staring at the dark-haired man in concern.

“I’m okay.” Helem had told this lie so many times that he wasn’t certain if there was a shred of truth in his words anymore. Although he had left Syria and the unspeakable tragedy there many years ago now, there was a part in his soul that would always remember how he lied, and _why_ he lied. It didn’t truly matter if they were family members to a patient, or to someone he met on the street. The sights and sounds of the A&E in Central London were too different from Syria – and he didn’t know yet, if that was good.

Uzuki’s attention was elsewhere. “We have two Caribbean pirates coming our way,” she stated, both to Helem and the two interns recently graduated from med school. Without any explanation to what the English slang meant, the dark-haired physicians heard the vital signs being read to the other doctors who had met the ambulance arrivals.

It was only due to Helem’s impassive nature to the violence that he had seen in Syria that he did not blanch at the two patients being wheeled into the A&E. One fellow colleague, his dark brown hair already stained with sweat despite the temperature outside on the cold January night, from strenuous CPR. The patient was approximately 180 cm, with dark curls damp against his forehead. His lips, of which would look like a pink cupid bow were too pale – a tint of blue against his mouth. The foil blanket that helped in the cases of hypothermia covered the whole of him. _This is bad._ Helem thought as he shouted for an IV. _Warming up the fluids in the IV won’t be enough. And…_

“How long as this patient been like this?” he asked calmly to the EMT, who was now staring with a somber, heartbroken expression as Abel, the intern, continued CPR for him.

“Five minutes since we arrived,” he whispered, enough for Helem and Abel to hear. “Both of them were unresponsive to CPR.” He nodded to Uzuki’s team, who was also doing CPR to the smaller female patient. Helem’s lips thinned, staring at the too-small figure who was given the same treatment as the other. “Oh God…”

“Why don’t we just let him die?” Abel asked between CPR. Helem’s head snapped towards him. “He’s been dead five, six minutes? There was plenty of time for the oxygen in his brain to start to die immediately after he decided to drown himself.”

Helem did his best to breathe deeply as he stared at the boy. A disgruntled look was appearing across his face as the CPR continued. He had short dark brown hair, and was average height. Ivory dark skin matched the scrubs he wore, and Helem attempted to find himself in that boy – ignorant and knowledgeable at the same time.

“A patient is never dead until they are warm and dead,” the dark-haired man explained patiently to his intern, who was looking at him in mild annoyance. “Never stop CPR until the body reaches normal body temperature, and cheek for a pulse.”

“How am I supposed to check for a pulse if I’m continuing CPR?” The younger man asked between compressions, looking at the former Syrian refugee.

Helem almost blinked. “I’ll take after the CPR as you measure his pulse.”

It was only when Abel took a pulse check that he got a closer look at the patient. Before, he hadn’t quite looked closely at his face. Now Helem’s practiced careful mask of calm was almost undone by amount of damage he saw on the patient’s face. A circular and ugly cut was along his eyebrow, as was another cut in the center of his forehead. As Helem continued doing CPR, his mind almost switched off. The EMTs had done a good job, but they had not been able to hide the ghastly hues of blue and yellow around the neck. _Attempt at strangulation._ Helem inwardly breathed through his mind at the thoughts that were now swirling into his mind. Although most physicians prided themselves as being able to tell injuries from external means and injuries from other humans, Helem was different. _Why…?_ He thought, blood distantly running through his ears as all sounds faded away, as he continued pressing on this man’s bruised chest. It felt as if he was beyond the pain of ordinary human beings, even when he had found the bodies of his friends’ years ago. Helem recognized that it was a human that caused the massive bruising around the man’s abdomen, deep enough that he could feel the bruised skin. It was a human that caused the other bruised around the patient’s ribs, making Helem hazily cautious of not actually breaking a rib.

 _Bruising around the abdomen and chest area, deep bruising only cau sed by…kicking._ This man had been on the ground when he was kicked; that explained the swelling around those areas, and…the hips as well were damaged by the force of the fall.

 _Please live. Please, please… Please…live! _Helem wasn’t certain what he was praying for. Was he really praying at all? His raw heart wanted this man to live, not for Abel’s or his own sake, but as a confirmation that the man he was trying to save had survived. To say that this man had survived when someone – someone _human_ had tried to make it certain that he did not.

“Hey, Dr. Hijazi!” Young Abel shouted near his direction, almost causing the Syrian doctor to freeze as his thoughts continued. “He’s got a pulse now, and warm! So you can stop…” the intern stopped talking, his face morphing into shock and confusion at the expression on his mentor’s face. Helem now took his hands off the patient’s chest, and saw, to his stunning relief, that they did have pulse. For a moment, Dr. Helem Hijazi touched the man’s chest, an impossible emotion rising through him as he was able to feel the thud of the heart.

“The other woman too is fine,” Abel was saying with an uncertain expression to the older physician. “Dr. Uzuki managed to find a pulse quicker, and the patient is in the ICU now, for safety reasons.” The dark eyes belonging to the physician did not move.

“Dr. Hijazi,” the young man said, sounding much younger than his twenty-six years and more empathetic than Helem had hear him sound in the last six months he had known him, “are you okay?”

“Yes.” The doctor stated with a wet voice, aware of the fact that he was more than likely crying and smiled reassuringly at the concerned intern. He turned to see the patient – the man who was being wheeled away too to the ICU – with machines reassuring him that this was real, that the patient was alive. “When we find out his name, I – no…we need to run tests on him to make certain that there are no internal injuries.” _Any more injuries, that is. The massive bruising could cause kidney damage._

“We need to contact the NDVH.”

Instead of disgust or horror, or any of the other range of expected reactions, Abel simply rolled his eyes.

“Don’t you know he’s the bloke from the blog?”

“What?”

Helem’s dismayed expression was met with Abel's incredulous expression. “Sherlock Holmes, the crazy detective with the funny and ugly hat! Don’t you remember him from the Culverton Smith case, the one that was all over the telly?”

“No…” Helem muttered distractedly, mapping out the bruises and injuries in his mind as Abel snorted. _I don’t like this._ For some reason, an odd and forbidden feeling that the young man thought he left behind in Syria, and when he arrived with his baby sister and brother in England, burned low in his stomach.

“Why would Sherlock Holmes need the NDVH?” Abel muttered under his breath, half talking to his absent-minded mentor. “If anything, they should probably call the NDVH on _him_.”

“People are never who they say they are, Abel.” Helem’s stare must have shook the young man, for the former mocking expression had dissipated into a subdued one where the young man had turned slightly grey.

 _Something is wrong,_ Helem thought as the uneasy feeling continued to quiver. _But Abel does have a point. Sherlock Holmes sounds like a man who would be able to defend himself…so why would he have bruises like this, and try to end his life?_


	7. Oxgen Is Boring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be on vacation for the next two weeks, so I will be unable to update until after the thirtieth of May.

_Warm._ That was the first sensation Sherlock felt upon regaining consciousness. The warm feeling that was encasing his body radiated through his extremities, the thin tendrils reaching his damaged body. Sherlock could still feel the aches and bruises from –

 _No._ Sherlock’s mind shuddered, a dark and hopeless feeling welling in his chest as the dark-haired man attempted to stop his destabilizing mind before it had happened. _No._ The resistance to the memory shattered as he remembered seeing his blood on the floor, his limbs inwardly spasming, a sentimental impulse to protect his ugly body as John continued to kick his abdomen. _Why did I even want that….to protect my disgusting body?_ It felt as though throughout the weeks without John Watson that Sherlock Holmes was collapsing into a world of eternal agony. It was his fault that Mary had died. If he hadn’t interrupted them, if he hadn’t been so _arrogant_ , then Mary, lovely Mary that John had sobbed in his arms not a week before, would not have died.

Sherlock’s skeletal hand twitched. _It hurts. It hurts…it hurts…_ This depression had even paled to what he had experienced when taking down Moriarty’s network. He was a living corpse then, living only through memories of John, his John that he had cruelly left behind. And – to prevent the memories of that time, that time of which he had never told anyone about, Sherlock focused on the sensations in his physical form.

 _It hurts so much to even exist. I…just want to disappear, John. Why can’t I disappear?_ The worn letter that Molly had given him resurfaced within his memories, and the too-pale man covered in blankets closed his eyes in order to not cry. _I am…no good for anyone._

Sherlock’s body had been de-familiarized with natural heat and warmth for the past couples of months, so much so that the dark-haired man had found himself in the hateful, terrible mornings curled into a fetal positon underneath his insufficient covers of his bed. It seemed like an idyllic dream that there had been days that he had walked around the flat in nothing but a white sheet. Perhaps during his time _away_ , his body became weak. It was true that his Transport needs decimated his body more than ever in the years since he had been back to London…to John…but now it seemed that his Transport had failed him again.

Sherlock had been in the hospital too many times to recognize the white light flashing against his closed eyelids, and the steady beeping of the heart monitor. _Ahh…why?_ His dulled mind didn’t answer the question that had appeared, brushing across the faint murmurs of despair. There was a nasal cannula embedded in his nostrils presumably to deliver oxygen.

_Oxygen. How boring._

Careless. He should have known –

_“Breathing. Boring.” John had said something. The failing man didn’t know what words John had said, but he remembered the vague feeling of pleasure at hearing the man speak. He was so fascinating, John Watson was. No one seemed to give him a second glance, and yet here he was, in Sherlock’s flat, said to be the most unsociable man in Britain. Sherlock remembered of how John had glanced at him then, surprise and something else echoing his features. Although Sherlock pretended to not notice his surroundings, it was a fact that his entire focus was on the man who he loved._

How many times did Sherlock resurface any of those memories? How many times did he reminisce? Of those days when John, beautiful and brilliant John Watson, was by his side? Before Moriarty, before Mary…before everything?

“Mr. Holmes.” Sherlock would have snorted at the pompous title if he had been able to. He hated being called Mr. Holmes. It made him sound like his insufferable brother Mycroft, a posh aristocrat drowning in their own self-bruising ego.

 _“The posh boy and the dominatrix.”_ Despite the apathy growing inside the empty shell of his body, Sherlock remembered the small smirk on John’s face as he said those words. _You see…but don’t observe. Why would anyone love me, John? You know this. I’m…_

“Can you hear me, Mr. Holmes? Squeeze my hand if you can.” _Interesting of how much you can know about a person by just…listening to their voice._ He knew that the person standing in front of his bedside was a doctor, had emigrated to England three years prior, which is why there was an accent with of how the doctor said his name. A gentleness undeserving of Sherlock penetrated his ear drums, and a part of him felt frozen and unable to breathe at the same time. _He didn’t understand why this stranger gave him kindness._

“You are safe, Mr. Holmes,” the too-kind voice continued to state as Sherlock’s heart rhythm skipped. “You are in St. Bart’s, in the intensive care unit.” The doctor repeated that Sherlock was safe, but the patient didn’t hear him.

 _I failed. I am still alive._ An ugly cry wanted to scream from Sherlock’s mouth. _This was supposed to work!_ The initial rage and horror, so tainted in despair the former consulting detective could feel the errant tears rising in his eyes, dissipated into nothingness. The ceaseless numb and empty feeling, enough to want to _do_ self-destructive behavior and to _feel_ , simply remained, landlocked in Sherlock’s mind for all eternity.

Sherlock had originally developed his Mind Palace from his brother. A Mind Palace, a child Sherlock knew, was supposed to be center in the mind to maintain information by placing them in certain “rooms.” He knew that most mind palaces were not places to hide demons, or any “negative aspects” that he was prone to. Mind palaces were supposed to be places to gather one’s thoughts, and not to hide one’s negative aspects away into a dark cell. _Moriarty…_ The name sent chills down Sherlock’s spine. It didn’t seem to matter that Sherlock had seen Moriarty kill himself on the roof of St. Bart’s three years ago. Moriarty…was the symbol of all that Sherlock had locked away deep inside of him, the demons that haunted his waking and sleeping days. Sherlock suspected that Mycroft knew about the secret cell in his Mind Palace. Perhaps that was why he used to tell Sherlock to use his logical mind before such useless sentimental drivel such as emotions.

But did he know that he was the first, one of many, to occupy the dark cell in his Mind Palace? _“The East Wind is coming, Sherlock. It’s coming to get you.”_

Sherlock opened his eyes. There was a doctor by his hospital bed. If this situation had occurred three years ago, Sherlock would have been deducing him immediately. But now…there was nothing. There was no trickle of excitement or relishing of the challenge of exposing the pedestrians’ secrets that were kept hidden. There was no childish glee of exposing anything, to say that he was worth something. Intelligent, a genius, just like stupid fat cake-loving Mycroft.

There was none.

Instead, Sherlock stared at the doctor with dark brown hair with a nametag that identified him as Dr. Helem Hijazi.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Holmes?” Sherlock almost snapped his head to find another physician standing beside the other. He hadn’t even seen her before. She was very small, judging of how John would be taller than her. _Stop._ Sherlock breathed in through his mouth to combat the sudden nausea building in his throat. She had short dark brown hair and olive skin, wearing the familiar physician’s white coat that had her name sewn onto it with black thread. _Lakshimi Patel, MD._

“I am your intensive care unit physician. I am also a surgeon,” the female doctor continued to state warmly. Her eyes wandered over to the bed across from Sherlock. “You and the lass over there gave us quite a fright.”

Sherlock turned his head to the left. The young woman he had met last night was in the bed across from him. Her hair was now dry, completely flat and lopsided. Sherlock felt nothing as he stared at the sleeping young woman who had saved his life. From the state of her hair and the lack of clothes, it was obvious that she had jumped into the Thames to prevent his suicide.

A pulse of hot pain palpated in Sherlock’s ribcage.

_“Keep your hands off it.”_

Exhaustion almost pulled back into the dark black hole of sleep. Maybe this time there would be no nightmares.

“Keep your hands off it.” He realized too late that he was speaking. Much to his horror, despite the hoarseness of his voice, and of the eerie quietness that came from it, the two doctors were listening to him. Intently.

 _Go away,_ the former self-identified sociopath whispered as he fought the onslaught of oncoming tears. _Go away…_

“It’s not your own…” Sherlock rasped lowly as the former energy he had dissipated. A half-formed agonizing memory burned.

“It is never your own…”


	8. Re: The Lying Detective (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pay attention to the first tags!

_Re: The Lying Detective (Part I)_

 

The world faded into silence. Except for the _beep beep_ of the heart monitor attached to him, there had been no indications that there was life attached to this useless Transport. Sherlock had almost said the same words that he had said to Faith, the thought-to-be Culverton’s daughter. It still made his stomach queasy at the thought of the woman in with red coat. _Was any of that…real?_ Whatever was left inside of him, the dead floating parts that were withering into an empty husk, fell faster at the vivid and yet hallucination-like aura that came with those…thoughts. Or were they memories?

_I don’t know. _

That is what scared Sherlock the most. The depression that made him who he was, this self-medicating and abusive junkie – at least what was written on the horrid handwriting of his psychologist during his admission to rehab – was only a sliver of emptiness that Sherlock had experienced in the past couple of weeks. If he had been year younger, the dark-haired man would have died than to admit that he feared his own mind. His own brilliant, arrogant mind, superior as opposed to the dull minds that he encountered every day. How futile that lie was. Sherlock closed his eyes, his breath hitching briefly as he remembered the raw, almost animalistic fear that rose inside of him at the sound of their laughter – Culverton’s, and the woman’s, who didn’t know him. The laughter was like knives embedded in his chest, making it hard to breathe. The mockery almost destroyed whatever sanity Sherlock had left.

No. The sanity had been destroyed the moment Molly had handed him John’s letter. It was…as if the laughter was validating whatever had been said about him. Sherlock would slip in and out of consciousness sometimes, not knowing what day it was, or where he was. The…situation with John was making the dark-haired detective feel as if there was something wrong with him. _No. Not that. Something more potent…more self-destructive._

The loss of control…oh, in his twenties he loved the feeling of losing control. Cocaine. Heroin. Morphine. The drugs that fueled his system became his only way of functioning out of the abyss. The abyss that defied his sunny days, the world seemingly a dull place to live in. Why else would dull people be happy with whatever imbecilic stray thoughts in their minds? He remembered of how it felt to want to plunge his hand, his arm, anything in reach, into a meat grinder. To make his heart stop. It felt as if that was the only way to end the pain. And then…the pain didn’t end. Deep pain, enough to be called physiological torture with of how every second of his living lungs was a dull feeling against every cell in his body. Sometimes, there had been fear as well. The fear would linger, as always, against his brain as Sherlock, a syringe in his hand, fingers trembling and face-down on a floor typical of drug users, as the younger, with a more helpless and lost look that would have made Molly weep, man wondered of how insane he truly was.

Sherlock hadn’t felt the sharpened raw fear and revulsion in more than a decade. Not since… A half-strangled sound almost escaped from his throat as a face emerged in his mind.

_“Wake up!” The kicks to his abdomen made his muscles spasm and burning fire exploded inside as John continued to kick him. Building agony as each blow became harder and reached his kidney, his bowels. Sherlock vomited blood as the kicks continued, his kidney and other organs throbbing. Please. It was very hard to not pass out, with every bone, every muscle screaming and crying for help or for IT to end. Please. His back hurt from being pushed hard against the metal doors of the morgue drawers. The skin above his eyebrow was bleeding, almost curving into his eye. It felt as if his stomach was going to explode from rivers of agony. And his eyes –_

“Mr. Holmes.” The female doctor called.

“Sherlock,” he immediately corrected, the sharp command echoing in the too-small room. A size of unexplained fear rose inside of him, and the man fought the urge to not curl into a ball. “It’s Sherlock,” he repeated more softly.

“Sherlock.” She seemed to be testing his name, almost as if wondering if it was acceptable to use the name given to him by his parents. Although, that in itself was not true. Sherlock had told his full name to John. On the day he was supposed to depart for the suicide mission in Serbia, forty-seven months ago now. Back then, he had been prepared to tell John that he loved him. He was about to tell his best friend, the kindest and bravest and wisest man that he had the greatest fortune of knowing that since the day they had met, Sherlock had loved John Watson. All those years of pining, angst, sorrow, and sacrifice would come to an end, and Sherlock would be able…to die in his own way.

By no means was this the route Sherlock wanted to take. But he was willing to anything for John. Even smile and joke about baby names as his heart was cracking into small pieces as he wept inside.

“Sherlock, I need your permission to run some tests. But before that, I also need to ask you a question.” Even without looking at her, Sherlock could hear the determination and concern in her voice.

“How did you come by those bruises?”

Sherlock felt his eyes wander, and his face tilt to the side. He fought against the abrupt nausea wanting to void out of his throat. He didn’t want to look at them. He didn’t want to look at them, their stares, and see what they thought they saw. _What is it that they see?_ His lungs became tight, and Sherlock forced his hands to still. He focused on the other person in the room. The young woman was wearing the same hospital gown that he was wearing, covering her thin body with slight wet curls framing against her forehead. A warm IV was also inserted in her veins. A look of calm and peace that Sherlock had only a vague memory of seeing once before surfaced as –

“Sherlock?” The voice was quiet. He could also taste the calculations in her mind as she saw his Transport betraying his emotions, wondering if her _stupid_ and foundless theory was correct. Sherlock would have only sneered out of self-preservation. “You are safe.”

 _Safe?_ Sherlock wanted to snarl at her. _Safe?! I was safe at the bottom of the Thames!_

He felt anger so deep that he almost wondered if this was what it felt like to be alive. He turned his face towards the perpetrator, eyes narrowed and only a slight indentation to hint that Sherlock was going to open his mouth when the physician with dark brown hair and a slightly paler complexion began to speak.

“We want to make certain there are internal injuries to your organs, Sherlock. Injuries such as yours can cause – ”

“Hematoma, internal injuries and bleeding, renal failure, and possible bowel obstruction.” Sherlock intoned dully as both doctors looked at him with incredulous looks on their faces. “Do you realize how stupid you look with faces like that?”

Dr. Helem Hijazi wasn’t fazed by Sherlock’s rude comment.

“Then why didn’t you go to the A &E if you knew the complications of your injuries?”

_…Because I didn’t care about my injuries. I didn’t care about my life. What about any of this are you able to understand? …But you don’t, do you? Only the girl who saved my deploring life, who has signs of severe depression herself, understands of why…I didn’t do anything._

John’s face as he looked down on the slightly rumpled Sherlock in the morgue made the man shut his eyes. _I deserved it. This pain that I have and the bruises across my body…are my fault._ Shame drilled into his weak body, racking the emaciated limbs and the trembling hands that had started again. _So why…does it hurt so much? It was my fault, my fault, everything…EVERYTHING._

 _It hurts…it hurts… It_ HURTS _. I don’t know why I am here right now, surrounded by people who – who –!_

“Sherlock.” The voice took away whatever breath was left in Sherlock’s lungs. Neither of the doctors had said his name, and both had slightly relieved expressions across their faces. Sherlock should have reacted in a similar manner as well. That was a societal acceptable manner of hearing the voice of someone part in the familial unit, or friends. Sherlock didn’t know what to think, or how to react. His body was frozen. His limbs were tense, pain tingling along the nerves. His face, the half with the bruises especially, was almost caressing the white blanket that covered his hospital gown.

“Hi. I’m John Watson. I’m a doctor.” The name sent streams of agony to Sherlock’s chest. His throat felt tight, almost as if the organ was obstructed by a painful object. It hurt to breathe. “I’m Sherlock’s…well…his contacts on his, erm…mobile.” The statement was awkward, almost obscenely so, but the other physicians seemed to accept the comment with ease.

They started to talk about him, something Sherlock would have caused the dark-haired man to deduce the participants around him out of spite, but now his entire focus was on being still. John was in the room. He hadn’t even looked up to see John yet, but the strange tightness of his chest continued to palpate.

“Sherlock.” The tone of his name shifted. It was similar to of how John had said _“Wake up!”_ The man, who found to his distant horror that his hands – his entire body was starting to tremble. He forced himself to look at John. The shorter man’s hair was in that terrible hairstyle again. Sherlock vaguely remembered that Mary had liked it. _Clothes rumpled and with creases, suggesting that John only slept for a couple of hours. Dark bags under his eyes…_ _“Wake_ _up!” And…_

_Why is my body reacting like this? It’s John. John Watson, who he said I was his best friend, and who I would do anything for. The man I love…the man I love, who was my sanity while I was taking down Moriarty’s network. Who saved more times than is humanly possible with the obtuseness of the human brain._

_Stop!_ Sherlock wanted to say to his body betraying him as he looked into John’s blue eyes. _Stop!_ _He’s not Moriarty…he’s everything to me, everything I want to become, and now_ this _is in the way._

“It’s always about you, isn’t it Sherlock?” The man in the bed visibly flinched. John was speaking to him now, and Sherlock forced his body not react. _That’s what saved you multiple times no matter what they said…whatever John said…it’s the same now…don’t react. Don’t._ “The bloody world revolves around Sherlock Holmes, and sod everyone else that gets hurt. Do you realize what you did to me, Sherlock? Do you have any idea?” Abruptly, John walked closer to Sherlock’s bed, finding the guardrails that Sherlock was suddenly noticing and gripped them hard enough for his skin to turn milk-white. “Hmm?” Even though John was not smiling, but the dangerously calm voice prior to violence remained. Sherlock’s body was now screaming for him to move, to do something as his limbs felt as if they were melting and dying by staying _right there._ “Do you have any consideration of any of human beings’ feelings? Of being woken up at the god-forsaken bloody fucking hour, and waking up to this _shit_?”

Sherlock’s heart monitor was going higher as each word came out of John’s mouth. His body was now shaking, his hands no longer able to contain self-control. “To find out that you tried to kill yourself?” There was no concern in John’s voice. Only the rage that Sherlock thought had disappeared. Sherlock’s eyes blurred, and he fought to not close those as John’s voice continued to bask in rage. “Did nothing I say go throw your poisoned drug-addled mind? Of how bloody _lucky_ you are to have Irene? You should be grateful that you even have _this_ life, Sherlock. But you lie, lie, _lie_!” The word almost made Sherlock curl into himself. That what John had said too at the therapist’s office. It hurt then, to hear the bitterness and all-consuming anger in John’s voice. It hurt now, even more.

“After the Culverton case, is this the height of your temper tantrums, you _twisting_ and _manipulating_ every single damn thing until it goes your way, as if it’s a toy? But that’s right, isn’t it…you don’t have a heart or _feelings_. You’re just a fucking sociopath who happens to be a junkie –!”

“Mr. Watson.” The young woman who had stated herself to be Sherlock’s doctor now had her hand curled around John’s shoulder. Her voice was cold, colder than it should have been. Her eyes were hard, staring at Sherlock’s best friend as he was a human that she didn’t recognize as being one of them. “Have you forgotten you are in the intensive care unit?” There was a hint of contempt in her voice. “You are distressing my patient. Go _now_ before I have to call security.”

Sherlock didn’t see John’s expression as he left the room. “It’s Dr. Watson,” trailed behind him, but Sherlock found that the sound of his best friend’s footsteps didn’t make his body relax. Instead, it made him realize what he needed, and the _pain_ and agony racing through his heart as the monitor continued to climb. His entire body was screaming at him to run away. Before any of the doctors could face him, and tell him with pasty lies that he was safe, and no one would harm him,

Sherlock ripped out his IV. It didn’t sting, and Sherlock only vaguely noted the blood welling on the site. Adrenaline was running through his body as if reacting to danger. His hands were still trembling.

_“This isn’t a game!”_

His chest squeezed his lungs, closing his throat and blurring his eyes. Sherlock tugged at his nasal cannula, trying in vain to rip it free when a sudden ripple of agony ripped through his stomach. Pulses of agony weaved through his abdominal cavity, leaving the dark-haired shell of a man gasping with his mouth open. _Hurts…_ It felt as if his entire abdomen was collapsing on itself. Still, weak legs and hands attempted to push away the hands that held his arm down, a scream forcefully swallowed in his throat.

Darkness at last faded Sherlock’s mind as Dr. Hijazi scrubbed the blood away.


	9. The Good Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long wait. I struggled in the last couple of weeks. I hope this chapter makes up for it. Take strides toward self-care.

_The Good Doctor_

 

Lakshimi was used to cases such as the man whose life was currently in the balance. How many times had she held the scalpel in her hands, searching for a bleed or fragments of dangerous materials in her patients’ bodies? Sometimes she walked away from the operating room with blood soaking her protective gear, even blood on her goggles and mask. One time, when she had been in her fourth year as a trauma surgical resident, the Indian woman had to operate on the woman with severe internal bleeding from domestic abuse, scars visible even through the largest organ on the body, four times before she was stable. As the younger woman washed away the stains of blood that had appeared across her wrists, the lone dark-haired woman realized of how different life was in the United Kingdom than from India.

It was much worse in India, yes. “Honor” killings and fire “accidents” happened, and a young woman was gang raped on a bus. Such atrocities in the United Kingdom would have caused a wildfire of disgust and demands for justice or reform, as it happened in India.

But. The scars existed. The veteran trauma surgeon had seen many cases of domestic violence and abuse. The shame.

The shrinking of fear as a person, supposed to heal and protect, was almost touched. The process of feeling smaller and smaller, and just wanting to run away. So many people across the streets and the world – the privileged world – shouted abuse, but Lakshimi doubted any of those fools realized what abuse was. Abuse was the self-disgust and hatred, and the belief that everything that the abuser did to you was correct. You _deserved_ it, and more.

It was strange, an odd discerning feeling. Lakshimi had only a handful of cases dealing with the more severe of domestic or partner abuse. Most of her patients were almost dead. But despite telling herself that the patients she saw with fear drowning in their eyes, and the self-hatred the defining trait, would find peace once they arrested the disgusting bastard…Lakshimi always remembered their cases.

A young girl, twenty-three at most, rocking to herself as her hands scratched her face, murmuring that _“Evan was a bad girl, a bad bad girl…”_ as sobs and shakes tore from her body. Two broken ribs, and a fractured ulna. Some say she was lucky not to have more “strenuous injuries.”

How many cases had Lakshimi seen, like the one of Sherlock Holmes?

Lakshimi always managed to remove herself from her emotions when taking a case. _Sustained ruptured spleen due to blunt force trauma. Hematoma, massive bleeding. No transfusion needed._ It didn’t matter that the man that she was operating on possibly was thrown on the ground, or leaped upon and punched. The blows so bad that they had left damage on his organs. _Significant damage to the renal artery…luckily no damage to the kidney itself._ There was no reason to remove the kidney. Not yet. Although suffering from renal failure, all the intensive care unit physicians would need to do was give him fluids. Her hands lifted the ruptured spleen and placed it in the hands of a resident, who quickly placed the damaged organ into a bin.

However, the woman who performed surgery could barely handle the rage building inside of her. From the moment Sherlock Holmes had woken up, Lakshimi knew that she was staring at another voice in a betrayal in the most disgusting way. She saw the bruises around his face. The emptiness when his raw voice spoke of potential complications. And of how he reacted when that man entered the room.

With her own eyes, she had seen Sherlock Holmes lose whatever life he had left. As Mr. Watson’s voice rose in anger and boiled rage, his hands grasped the blankets and his body seemed to shrink. The heart monitor was screaming. His hands, which had tensed as if he was about to fight, shook like leaves.

Lakshimi cursed in Urdu. She was about to have another thought when –

“Dr. Lakshimi Patel.” Her dark eyes glared at whoever had interrupted the thoughts in her head in the hospital ward where _she_ worked. A pompous man in a three-piece suit, complete with dark hair and a mysterious look, stood in the middle of the surgery wing as if he belonged there.

“What?” she barked. The man, whoever he rose, didn’t even raise any eyebrow to him being spoken to like an intern. Instead, his left hand twirled the black umbrella handle between his fingers.

“How much do you know about your patient, Sherlock Holmes?” Before Lakshimi was about to retort, a small sneer, making her dormant irritation grow as he spoke patronizingly. “Please do not ask how I know, or that the question cannot be answered. We cannot have such…errant words, can we?’

“What do you know?” the doctor slowly inquired, taking a glance at his expensive clothes, the wristwatch attached and within his suit, and the slight tapping of his umbrella that made her want to scream.

“I know that Sherlock Holmes was taken to the Accidents and Emergency Department at St. Angel’s, and was resurrected through CPR by Dr. Halem Hijazi.” Lakshimi pretended to not stare at him in shock at knowing one of her best collogues’ names. She stared at his eyes instead, gray and cold as if those eyes were windows to the ghastly weather of England itself, and his mouth, which was moving, but contained no emotion. “Then, he was taken to the Intensive Care Unit, whereupon, he had to have emergency surgery regarding a ruptured spleen.” He did not move his eyes from her as he spoke. “I believe the situation had exasperated itself from the visit from Dr. Watson –”

“ _Dr._ Watson?” Lakshimi intoned, knowing that rage was now seeping from her tongue as she heard the title that she shared. She glared hatefully at this man who had as much influence as a fat aristocrat he was. “He has no right to that title.”

Now the unnamed man’s eyebrows rose. “This is what goldfish care about,” he muttered under his breath. “My apologizes. It was an unfortunate habit of mine. Now, Sherlock Holmes will be transported –”

The doctor’s patience had exploded into spears of anger and disbelief as her voice became low and menacing.

“My _patient_ is not going anywhere. He just had a traumatic operation, sustained major injuries to his entire body. And that is not even talking about his mental stability.”

“All of Sherlock’s medical needs will be taken care of by my staff,” the dark-haired man stated coldly. “They are an advanced team of medical professionals, including some stationed at the facility. Far away from London and the finest medical trauma specialists in the United Kingdom,” he added, watching her flush.

Lakshimi remained able to speak despite wishing to slap the smug look off this Tory’s face.

“This transfer will not only harm my patient, but will cause his mental health to suffer. I do not know about Sherlock Holmes, but I do know that taking away familiar surroundings may worsen his depression and cause him to commit suicide again.” If she thought the man’s face would change, she was wrong. His face was as cold as ever.

“I have been through Sherlock’s _mental health_ for quite a long time,” he stated as if talking about the weather. Then he closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to catch his breath. “Not only will he be admitted to the Blackfriar Mental Health Institute, but Dr. Halem Hijazi will as well.”

“As you scrubbed away the laborious work from your hands, both targets were found and taken into a van, where they are currently on their way to the institute as we speak.”

Lakshimi must have misheard the man in the three piece-suit, but the bored gaze on his face confirmed otherwise.

“We have also transferred the Jane Doe, as you call her. Interesting case she has…”

“Why her?” Lakshimi grounded between her teeth. _Halem…!_ Inside her mind, she could only barely grasp the surface of the terror the soft-spoken and brave man was enduring now. “Why Halem Hijazi? He just came from a war-torn Syria, you bloody bastard!” she screamed at last. “Do you have any idea what you have just done? This is kidnapping, you cannot –!”

“I chose them because they saved Sherlock’s life.” The man said simply. Suddenly, he put a hand to his face and looked tired. “My brother has gone through hell and fire, not once or twice..." A sigh came from him then. "But, this is the third time Dr. Patel, and I impose that you do nothing in your power to stop this.”

She breathed deeply and shook her head. “This is a mistake, Mr. Holmes,” she intoned, and she saw the look of grave certainty pass along the brother’s face. "I have only read his medical history, but there were indications of severe drug abuse in his already abused body." She looked at him in the eyes. "What kind of physician could allow such damage to occur on anyone without doing something, and I implore you, Mr. Holmes, to take care where you tread. John Watson is no _doctor_..." the female breathed in renewed anger as she remembered the vows she took upon wearing the white coat. "And nor are you. Sherlock...has already died once."

The man didn't say a word for a moment. His usual cold expression relented, and a look of reflection appeared. He had not reacted to the doctor's opinion and words on John Watson, but a subtle twitch on his left finger made her aware that his heart was listening.

“There was a time in which I wondered if John Watson would save my brother, or make him worse than ever.” There was a sudden, ironic smile that left as quick as it came. “I am afraid that both were prophesied correct.” He turned away from her, the long end of his umbrella echoing against the hallway.

“As for John Watson, I will take care of it.” He paused as a hand gripped the handle dearly. “Personally.”

“And I am a member of the Labour Party, Dr. Patel.” Instead of the pompous look of triumph that Lakshimi thought would grace his face, there was a shadow with more sorrow than she thought for him. “As my brother says, there is always something.”


	10. The Road Continues

_The Road Continues_

 

Helem knew that it had been stupid to walk into the van by a strange dark-haired woman who said that he should get into the vehicle to help a person who needed his assistance. In hindsight, the doctor should have seen the signs. Like a diagnosis, there was always a hint of an underlying explanation before the disease grew into its Level IV stage. The dark haired man had seen the sleekness of the woman’s shoes, as if she did not often walk to places – or anywhere. Her eyes had been solely focused on the Blackberry in her two hands, the texting noises almost blocking of what she had told Helem. It was of how she had framed her sentence as well. _Most people say help, not…whatever she said to me._

The former Syrian doctor had realized as the van started to drive away from hospital where he worked and foolishly pursued into this sleek black van, that he had made a mistake. But the doors were bolted shut. A figure in three-piece suit, with thick and heavy arms, had carefully maneuvered himself from one of the seats and shut a key inside one of the locks. There was no way out…except if the slighter man threw himself out of a moving van and breaking the window. However, Helem knew why he was summoned to this van the moment he saw his surroundings. Two hooks, one of the left and one on the right, held two IVs in place. Somehow two heart monitors had been able to fit inside, and were currently beeping away. Helem stared at the two supine figures still unconscious in their hospital beds, too shocked to say a word.

They were the patients that he had treated at the A&E hours ago. He remembered being told by the Intensive Care surgeon to go back down into the unit that he belonged – kindly, of course, as despite Helem’s impressive resume, he was not a surgeon. Helem still didn’t quite understand of why human beings would hurt each other so much in a country that was at peace. It wasn’t as if Sherlock Holmes had ever been to war, or had seen human life bleed out in his arms. It wasn’t as if he was a hunted man, despite of the agony he was facing. Helem closed his eyes at the memory of seeing the man whose supine form was now inches away from him, almost bolt away from a man named John Watson from fear. If he hadn’t had a nasal cannula to allow oxygen to flow more fluidly in his lungs, Helem knew that the dark-haired man would have attempted to escape.

Sherlock may not have been at war, but whatever self-control he had before had withered before Helem’s eyes. Those empty, blue eyes had widened impossibly wide, and his body tensed as if physically in pain. Fear like that…Helem knew. He knew what it was like to feel so afraid against the threat of your own existence that it felt as if your body itself was dying, or that every cell was about to fly or hide away. The two people, who didn’t even have a chart, had attempted to end their lives. Helem didn’t know why they would do such a thing, but he had personally seen so much destruction of the world that even his twin baby siblings knew that life was often more painful than death.

“I am sorry, Dr. Hijazi.” The man who spoke had been the one to use the keys to lock the van. His voice was surprisingly clear, and sounded younger than Helem himself. “Mr. Holmes said that he regrets manipulating you into a situation like this, but you are needed.”

“Needed for what?” Cold steel of anger enter Helem’s voice. He paced around the room.

There was a brief silence. There seemed to be something missing in what Helem was feeling despite his anger over his situation. For the briefest of moments, green eyes followed to where the two hospital beds were.

“Mr. Holmes needs your skills to save his brother and companion, Dr. Hijazi.”

How many times had Helem heard those words, in the form of pleading through the eyes or the high screams of family members, or the rage of humans struggling to survive? Syria was, Helem had concluded after surviving the destruction of his home, surviving his aged parents that were barely able to see Raza and Aziza walk, a place no one cared about. It didn’t truly matter that civilians had died, by their own leader who was only alive the kill them and consolidate power, that boys and girls that had been innocent child the day the world had decided to betray them and kill whatever goodness inside of them, or than human beings were massacred using chemical weapons. Syria was a place too dangerous, too insane, and too drowned in blood and the craters of bombs and barren land to be a country anymore.

It was a failed state. A state that had failed over too many people, including the dead that outnumbered the living in Helem’s life. That state, and the states of rich, white countries, had failed his parents, who were nothing but kind and humble people, and had died so their beloved son and tiny children could have a better life, and death than they had.

So when the unknown man had said this, Helem lungs had filled in rage.

“You know what I hate about Westerners?” The hatred seeping in his voice surprised him. He had always considered himself a kind individual, forgiving of past mistakes and negligence, and teaching his baby siblings that it was better to be happy than angry. “They always think they can get what they want. It doesn’t matter if they kill, _destroy_ a person’s life, or even fuck them up. I died twice to come here, to this shitty little island, and here I am, working to save lives that aren’t even grateful – ! If these people wanted to end their lives, then I don’t have _anything_ to do with this!”

There was only the sound of Helem’s ragged breathing after he finished yelling. His heart was still pounding in his head, and he felt his rage burn through his mind. _Why does it have to be like this?_ He thought, grounding his teeth. _Why? Why, why why why?_

“Mr. Hijazi,” the woman who had been attached to her Blackberry now spoke to him, her voice sounding oddly at ease. “Mr. Holmes understands that you have suffered. However, he cautions to not be hasty with your judgements.” Her eyes were clearly on the road, but she was speaking to him. “In truth, you are one of the last hopes Mr. Holmes has for his little brother to…heal. If you hadn’t been there that night, in addition to the patient on your right, Sherlock Holmes would have died.”

“We expect you to review the documents involving the medical history of Mr. Holmes the younger on the left side of the interior, in a box. Please do not ask any questions.”

Sighing and his emotions messily arranged, Helem stared at the small box. It was a black unassuming box that drew no eyes to it, but Helem understood that it was required of him as a doctor who specialized in emergency medicine to “assess the information and treat” Sherlock. There was no mention of the other young girl who had saved the man in question, but Helem thought that this Mr. Holmes would want her to live as well.

The papers containing the medical history of Sherlock, the man whose existence was why Helem was in this van, was surprisingly thick. Pages upon pages were felt in the doctor’s hands, bound together by a slight file. Helem’s expression became grim and shock palpated his entire body as he witnessed the intense severity of Sherlock Holmes’ medical history in the past two years. The medical terminology, once so foreign and cold with its language, now confronted him with massive amounts of data. Helem stopped at the bottom half of the page he was reading, and stared hauntingly at the man who was currently unconscious in the hospital bed.

 _I spoke too soon,_ Helem thought as his throat closed. His eyes blinked away the sudden tears that were starting to form in his eyes.

“What did Mr. Holmes do in the past two years….for this kind of medical history?” Broken bones were the kindest of injuries the dark-haired patient had received. Helem inwardly had blanched at the description of injuries that defied the notion that this man was anything but privileged.

“No questions, Dr. Hijazi.” The woman dismissed him.

As he continued to turn the pages in the seeping light of the windows with the only sound being the heart monitors, Helem wondered if he truly knew what he was getting into. 


	11. Author's Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for reading and enjoying this story. Well, the eleventh chapter isn't here yet. I had a really bad relapse at the beginning of August, and so I haven't been able to write anything without crying in pain. I do not know when I will update this story again. For a couple of days I will be in the company of triggering situations, so it will be likely that I will not update this story in early September either. Thank you so much for your support so far. I will update this story! It means far too much to me to not write it, as Sherlock's abusive relationships and his depression mirror our own stories. I will hopefully see all of you in the near future.

 

Nihonkikuasa211


	12. You're Lucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Watson is such an abusive mess right now. What he did to Sherlock in the morgue is just the beginning of such a fucked up "relationship." He knows what he does to Sherlock when he avoids him! John didn't even care about his so-called "friend" in the infamous episode. I could go on and go on about this, but I will leave that task to certain characters.  
> Be prepared to be frustrated. Triggers for abusive behavior, blame, and suicide attempt.

_0500 hrs. before..._

                                                                          _You're Lucky_

 

John was beyond speech when he left the hospital. He didn't understand why he had been ordered out of that hospital room. _Sherlock's_ hospital room. What exactly did he say that was not true, that wasn't what Sherlock had been doing all these years?

John Watson didn’t know how exactly he came to be in such a bloody situation. He was bloody _doctor_ , no matter what that criminal Culverton Smith said! A molten lava of smoldering rage ravaged his stomach. His acing eyes shut, attempting to will away the irrespirable urge to punch something.

 _Stupid Sherlock._ Unbidden, an image of Sherlock lying in that hospital bed drummed inside his mind. _Stupid, shellfish…_ John shook his head, trying in vain to get the image of his friend out of his mind. _Friend?_ His unhelpful mind supplied. _Since when have you been friends, you shit? Ever since_ he _–_

“Don’t.” John whispered to himself, careful not to track any attention. He didn’t need anyone to think he was crazy. Unlike Sherlock. A dark chuckle escaped his mouth before he could control it. _I guess it’s true. How did I not see how…mental he was?_ The memories of Sherlock only brought boiling rage, burning and twisting inside until nothing else remained.

His wife. _Mary. “You swore a vow.”_ Why had he visited Sherlock weeks after the morgue, anyway? Deepest in his rage and grief, John knew the truth of things. He visited Sherlock, the gaunt inhumane _junkie_ to make certain he was alive. Not out of caring for the human being. Which was why his words that he had spoken to _him_ that day were for John’s benefit. And the moan that interrupted them. _Thirty-eight years old and still…_ No. John Watson couldn’t finish that thought. _“Do you have any idea how lucky you are?!”_

 _Yeah…Sherlock. Do you have any idea of how I would kill to be in your shoes?_ Rage increased the speed of his breath, and pain entered his palms when his fingernails pressed too deep into his palms. His lips were pressed together at the thought of _him_. _Selfish wanker. Always thinking about yourself, aren’t you? The world can’t possible survive without the prancing of Sherlock Holmes! You need me just as you need your massive, disgusting ego, Sherlock._

But yet, there was something else that infuriated him about Sherlock Holmes. And without knowing why, no matter how hard he tried, John only became angrier.

 _I’m just a plaything to you, like when a child gets bored and throws a temper tantrum when it’s not there. Only,_ John’s thin lips released an ironic smile. _Your temper tantrums include recreational drug usage and suicide._

_I don’t need your body on top of this._ John didn’t need anything more on his plate, thank you very much.

The middle-aged man was shocked to find himself at the address of 221B. Anger pulsated in his eardrums. _Again, you manipulate me into doing things I don’t want to do, Sherlock!_ Still, maybe it would be good to see Mrs. Hudson again. He didn’t visit her at all during the time he had visited Sherlock, and there was the regular babysitting duties the dear landlady had done for Rosie.

Guilt gnawed at his sides. _It would do good to have a visit._ Straightening his stance and flicking off any imaginary dust off his clothes, John carefully inserted the key that Sherlock had insisted he keep even after he and Mary had moved to their home in the suburbs. _Just to keep him clinging to me, I imagine._

“Mrs. Hudson?” John shouted in the hallway. There was no answer from the flat above, and John quickly moved to knock on the door to her flat.

“Mrs. Hudson?” He knocked on the door again. For a moment, John stood there before the flat of 221A, worry and irritation seeping into his bones. She had never, in the time John was a tenant, not answered him before.

 _Maybe she’s out,_ John thought as the door opened.

“John!” Mrs. Hudson’s cheerful face appeared in his view then, and John hurriedly forced himself to smile. “It’s so good to see you, dear! Come in, come in!”

Heaving a sigh of relief, John closed the door behind him. Instantly, his nostrils took in the scents of baking; of sugar, lemon, and cinnamon. He looked around the small flat and didn’t note any cookery or any other baked goods on the counter. The kitchen was bare. The man frowned. It almost seemed too clean, as if no one had been living here for weeks.

“Now, why did you come to visit an old lady like me, John?” Mrs. Hudson asked as she took a seat by her table.

“I wouldn’t call you that, Mrs. Hudson,” John said with genuine kindness. “You’re still young.”

“I am old enough to remember the Thatcher decade. That terrible shrew of a woman. Tolerated nothing, not even the hint of my herbal soothers.”

“…Yes?” John answered quizzed. He was very bewildered by the turn of the conversation. How did Mrs. Hudson know about drugs? Or Margaret Thatcher, for the matter? He cleared his throat. Bringing up the case that cost Mary her life brought up bad memories. John hoped that Mrs. Hudson would stop this kind of conversation.

Suddenly, Mrs. Hudson fully looked at him. It struck John that she hadn’t been truly looking at him before. Her eyes had been on the table, or the flooring. Her kind and cheerful eyes that he had been the recipient of were wrong. No, not wrong. The former gentle eyes were cold, almost as if they had been previously looking at hell in the face. Her face showed the wrinkles of her age, and there was no smile on her face. A chiseled, cold stare was all that John was seeing.

“Are you even his friend anymore, John?”

“W-what?” John stuttered. He kept on looking at Mrs. Hudson’s face, hoping it would change, but the same face stared back at him. “I don’t know what…”

“Surely you remember him. He’s a walking corpse that almost overdosed on heroin and cocaine.”

John almost saw red. His anger palpated in his mind, and the scrape of the chair as it sounded with his heavy breathing as the man he was swallowed and tried to gain control.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hudson. That you had to deal with his crap again. I’m certain that he’ll apologize as soon…” He was about to say “as soon as he gets out of the hospital,” but Mrs. Hudson didn’t know that Sherlock was in the hospital for a suicide attempt. “I’m certain he’ll apologize, Mrs. Hudson,” John clumsily continued.

“You’re his landlady.”

“It’s not me that you should apologize, John.” An odd emotion crossed over her face before it disappeared. Was it…sadness that he saw? But why would Mrs. Hudson act this way, if it was that emotion?

“But then…who should I apologize to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Hudson's comment about Sherlock was to get John to react in a concerned friend manner. Nothing else intended there.


	13. I Don't Kill You, John Watson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Please be reassured my absence is due to the real life stresses of moving, unpacking, and the upcoming holidays. So far, I haven't had another relapse. I also have some news to announce to you all at the end of the notes.

I Don’t Kill You

 

Mrs. Hudson simply stared at him. Or rather, she was not staring at him, but her eyes bored beyond his body, even beyond the essence of his soul. John stilled. Any thought of any of Martha Hudson’s delicious baked goods disappeared under that gaze. Her hazel-brown depths, normally the color of warm earth and bright, appeared to grow darker each second. It was an all-consuming, soul-searching stare that John had found himself under many times. Unbidden, Sherlock’s eyes, heterochromia as if he wasn’t enough to scare any sane individual, came to mind.

Sometimes, the darkest of blue like the deepest of ocean, searching into his gaze as if consuming him, consuming all the knowledge that… _he_ had of John. Irritation bubbled in John’s mind at the image, itching to tear his very muscles and bones apart. Hot fever spreading throughout his body, thinking about the man that _caused this_ situation. John’s shoulders stiffened, thankfully not bringing the white-hot pain it used to when Mary died in his arms.

He’s _the reason I can’t fucking see my own damn daughter…the reason that I feel this burning and hot rage every time I think of him! I don’t know why I said those words to him, about Mary and the fucked-up-affair that never was… Why? That letter doesn’t even justify what I am feeling right now...! I don’t know who is he is, not really._

 _“But he’s_ our _monster.”_

“Why should I tell you, John, if you don’t understand?” Mrs. Hudson finally spoke, her eyes never leaving the bewildered expression building across John’s face. Her expression showed such deep sadness that John half-opened his mouth but then –

“You have no idea of what Sherlock has been through.” John’s bewilderment turned into the familiar burning anger as he saw Mrs. Hudson’s kindly face wither into one of pure rage.

_Just his name alone…_

“As if _I_ haven’t been through enough,” John muttered darkly, absently forgetting that he was hoping for Mrs. Hudson to sympathize with him for being a widower father of a baby girl who lost her mother far too young because of a madman. Instead, the pallor of her skin turned a shade lighter, and her lips pressed together as if fighting an inhuman scream.

“When you… _left,_ John, you didn’t just leave Sherlock alone.” Anger that John had never seen before, not even when he came back to 221B after two years. “I don’t know what you said to him, but it destroyed him. Not _even_ four hours had gone by since you last met, and he injected himself with heroin and cocaine.” If she expected John to react with horror and guilt, Mrs. Hudson was wrong. John’s only response was.

_As if it’s my fault that Sherlock decided to poison his body._

“He just kept getting worse and worse, and taking more as if it was the only thing to keep him alive,” Mrs. Hudson whispered. “And you _didn’t think_ that he wouldn’t react like this, after what happened last time.”

_Last time. After Mary and I were married. When I found him in that blasted drug den._

“And then,” the old woman continued, her voice becoming haunting with emotions of grief and sorrow, “I realized that Sherlock didn’t want to live.” Mrs. Hudson turned towards John. “Do you know how many times he tried to contact you, John?”

 _Actually,_ John wanted to shout, tired of talking, tired of Sherlock, and tired of all this mess, _I don’t care!_ It took him a couple of seconds to realize that he had actually said that out loud. The normal shocked eyes and efforts to rephrase with clumsy and failing apologizes never came to John. Instead, he watched Mrs. Hudson’s silence. She didn’t say anything to his words. For a moment, John actually thought he might have shocked the poor woman.

The mask of worry and grief was replaced slowly. John watched as Mrs. Hudson’s entire body tightened, and her face became cold. It was almost as if he was looking at the actual ice and cold of the Artic shores manifested inside this old woman.

“Sherlock had forgotten that I had seen many more smackheads than he had been alive,” Mrs. Hudson said to him, her voice void of any emotion. “Just as you have forgotten that I am a former wife of a drug dealer.”

John almost laughed. _Why are we still talking about that bastard?_

“What does this have to do with –?”

“QUIET!” John recoiled. He had never heard Mrs. Hudson shout. Somehow, despite her old age, it felt to the ex-captain that her shout was similar to the drill sergeant he and the other recruits always hated. How was it possible that he was _afraid_ of Mrs. Hudson, just from the sound of her raised voice?

“What did I tell you, John?” Even though she wasn’t shouting anymore, there was still the steaming rage that made it so that John didn’t have the chance to speak. “When Sherlock is angry, he shoots the wall. When he is sad, he plays the violin. You of _ALL PEOPLE_ should know who he truly is!”

 _I know who he truly is,_ John thought through gritted teeth. _He’s a monster._

“Or am I the only one who knows that he is in agony every day because of what you did to him?” Rage so deep it almost touched John with its heat as Mrs. Hudson spoke louder and louder. “Avoiding him since Mary died? Knowing that he is a drug addict, and isolating him from the one person he – he trusted most of all is _cruel_ , John! As if he didn’t exist, as if, you didn’t care about the fact he was near death.” The last work was spoken quietly, almost as if it was a caress, or spoken so quietly it would protect someone from its whisper.

 _“I’ve seen slabs with better health.” Molly said he had weeks to live,_ John thought as Mrs. Hudson finished ranting. _Right. I wonder if she just examined him just to…_ A weird flame of jealousy flickered in his abdomen, wondering how the mousy-haired woman would have examined Sherlock’s body. Inwardly shaking his head away from the irritating thought, John remembered further of what Smith had said. _“Look at him.” I didn’t care to look at him. I hated the sight of him. I didn’t_ bloody _care he was using, or…anything about him. I am a doctor, I don’t care what that bloody freak says, I am…_

“I have seen many men, white men, angry over what they can’t have.” Mrs. Hudson’s soulful brown eyes followed John’s with sorrow and pity. John was too stunned to see the look in her eyes to react. “Angry of what isn’t theirs, and they scream and terrorize the world, and _hurt_ people because they don’t have what they want. History repeats itself, always at their mercy.”

At first John thought Mrs. Hudson was talking about her ex-husband, the drug dealer who blew someone’s head off. He seemed to be that kind of man. Then, something broke inside John as he registered the meaning of her words.

“Tell me what you mean, Mrs. Hudson.” John stated dangerously calm.

“That night at Angelo’s when you first met,” Mrs. Hudson said with calm, “if you would have been more honest with yourself, he would have said yes.”

John saw red. He was aware of nothing but the roaring in his ears, and the white rage burning in his lungs. His body was about to jump forward, hands tight and wishing for blood when he heard –

“I’m not afraid of you, John Watson. Go ahead. See if you can try to hurt me like you did with Sherlock.”

A bucket of freezing water was dumped over John as his gaze faded from red and as he saw the controlled and calm face of Mrs. Hudson. She didn’t look at him in fear. Nor did she simply accept John’s righteous rage, as Sherlock did. His mouth suddenly went dry as he saw the woman’s dauntless expression.

“H-how…?” John asked. He cringed at the stumble in his voice, and tried to speak without any vulnerability.

“Who do think found him vomiting your so-thoughtful cake in the loo?” Mrs. Hudson’s sarcasm was so thick John could have used a knife to tear it apart. “Who do think comforted him in his detox days as he _cried_? I had to help him shave John, because the tremors in his hands were so bad! I saw the bruises, the ones around his _neck! How_ could you – ?!”

“That’s wasn’t me!” John shouted. “It was Culverton Smith!”

“That makes me feel so much better, John. You left him, after _beating_ him, alone with him spiraling into detox and wounds that _you_ gave him, with a serial killer!” Mrs. Hudson could only talk about Sherlock. John’s rage increased. He remembered that godforsaken hour in the night after drinking finding Mycroft calling him about Sherlock, _again_. _Always about Sherlock,_ John fumed.

“Did you see the state of him when you _visited_ , John? I expected you to take him to the hospital right away, from the extent of the damage to his ribs, abdomen, and god knows the internal injuries you gave him when you are –!”

“He _DESERVED_ it!” John screamed. “For killing my wife, for _everything!_ For being _DEAD_ for two bloody years! That – monster is a liar, so why do you believe anything he says? He’s doing it for attention, for getting me back like the selfish prick he was, and why is everything about Sherlock?!”

His screams were loud enough to be heard across the entire building, but for once, John didn’t care. His increasing rage was so high he turned his attention to the chair he was sitting in, throwing it with his hands, where it landed lopsidedly by the door.

 _“Why is_ everything _my fault?”_

Mrs. Hudson didn’t start fussing about and worrying about the neighbors when John kicked the furniture in 221 B. Mary had been alive then, and John’s rage grew even more at the memory of the night when it was revealed to him that his wife was a lying assassin pregnant with his child. He had been so angry then. Angry enough that he didn’t even recognize her as his wife.

Just a lying, assassin.

Just as Mrs. Hudson was doing now. She didn’t look as if she recognized him. As if he was a speck of dust she had unfortunately found.

“Yes, why is everything your fault, Jon Watson?” She didn’t expect an answer from the question John knew was dangerously calm. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you.” The quiet coldness of her voice could make the entire atmosphere still. If the rage and - was that hatred? - from her voice alone, it seemed that the old woman could kill him.

“Get out of my house.”

 _"Get out of my house. You_ reptile."

This time, she had no noun to describe John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was accepted into a university in Japan for graduate school! As for what this means for this story, I do not know yet. I plan on updating one more chapter before the New Year. Please comment below!


	14. 孤独な、空っぽいの記憶 Memory of Solitude and Emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone remember Isobel? This is her chapter, with Isobel's POV, before waking in the land of the living after rescuing Sherlock.

孤独な、空っぽいの記憶

 

_Kioku...kanashii no omoide. Mae no umi, mae no aoi me no otto..._

Memories...sad memories resurfacing. Before the ocean, before the man with the blue eyes...

_Toki doki, mai no asa nanka iki o sutteiru. Iki o suttara, itami dake o kanjiteiru._

Sometimes, every morning, I find it hard to breathe. If I do breathe, I only feel pain.

_Nigetai…nigetai. Zutto._

Run away. I want to run away.

_Demo…dokonimo nigenakatta. Daremo tsukarenai. Kokoro no naka, nandemo, nandemo…naiteiru. Itsumo naiteru. Namida o yamerarenakatta. Namida o nakanakattara, karappoi to omou._

But there is nowhere I can run. No one can save me. Inside my heart, many times, so many times…I’m crying. I am always crying. The tears don’t stop. And even if they did, I think I would feel empty.

_Kara ppoi. Kuu. Mimonai. Mou kara ppoi. Nanka jubun ga daikirai. Doushite ikishiteru, doushite ikitai?_

Empty. Emptiness. Useless. I am still...empty. I hate myself. Why am I am living, why do I want to live?

イゾベル。私の名前だ。

Isobel...that is my name. But it doesn't feel like me.

_Wakarai. Wakarai. Wakaranai. Koitsu watashi wo aitshieru ga, watashi no kimochi wa…_

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand.

She said she loved me, yet my feelings…

_Kao to omottara, naiteru. Naze? Naze da? Nandemo, nandemo, hitori de naru._

If I imagine her face, I cry. Why? _Why?_ So many times, many times…I was alone.

_Hitori de naru. Ibasho ga nai. Zutto saitei akuta._

I am alone. I don’t have a place to belong. I am the lowest disgusting garbage.

_Kodomo no koro seigi no mikata to ittemashita. Demo, ima…nanimo dekitanakatta._

I heard it said somewhere that someone wanted to be a Hero of Justice when they were a child. However, I don’t want to be anything.

I loved her so much. But then…she changed.

_“Ryori o tsukanattara, tabemono o tabemasen.”_

_“If you don’t cook, I won’t eat.”_

_“Uso! Uso, itsumo uso.”_

_“Lies! Lies, you always misunderstand.”_

It was either lies, or I twisted words until they suited me. I tried to defend myself, remind her of the things she said that hurt me. Ask her to do small things when I was away at school. But she wouldn’t help herself. Every meal was the same because she would complain that she was tired of shopping and didn’t like the thought of new food.

Even if I asked to go to the doctor, she would ask why, and then tell me no. Despite going miles away for surgeries for her needs.

Selfish. That’s what I was. I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't feel happy.

_Okaasan. Gomen nasai. Gomen nasai. Watashi wa nanimo shitake arimasen. Dakara, nanimo hitsuyou arimasen._

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mom. I don't want anything. I don't need anything._

I could take care of myself. It didn’t matter that I was an undergraduate student and having stress attacks. I didn’t need her support, or anything that I wanted. I would eat the same meal…even though I felt sick and withheld food from myself for guilt.

_Watashi wa nanimo shitake arimasen. Onegai…kizutsukenaide kudasai. Onegai…naitieru. Anata wa ki ni shitemashita._

I couldn’t cry. Not in front of her. Otherwise, she would ask me why I was so sensitive, why I kept misinterpreting what she said.

_“You’ve been an asshole.”_

Inwardly screaming, tears streaming down my cheeks, a raw blood-curling wish to die in my mouth.

I couldn’t ask for help even though there were times I was doubting my sanity. There were times I wanted to hysterically laugh. I couldn’t ask for…she was all I had, and she didn’t give me…much. No medication would help.

I cried when people said anything to me, were kind to me, or smiled…because I felt so alone. I didn’t deserve it.

I was stretched thin, pulling apart and empty, so empty inside for months. It was as if I had nothing inside of me.

I wanted to die. One day in class it felt as if my body was actually dying. The time stretched so slowly it was as if every second was a labored breath…as if every second was too much for my body to handle.

I almost told somebody.

Almost, pressing my body against theirs to simply _feel_ and be _safe_. But I knew that if I did, I would be locked away. She would get mad. And then I would kill myself.

The nightmares didn’t come then. That came later. I told her that I got accepted into a school in England, trying not to flinch as she hugged me and told me of how much she loved me.

自分を殺す死ぬ死ぬ憂つ自分を殺す憂つ自殺自殺自殺自殺自殺自分を殺す殺す　生き _たくない_

 _痛み_ _苦しみ_ _痛み_ _自殺_ _絶望_ _苦痛_ _疼く…苦しみ_

I lied. I lied to get out of that house, out of that life. My two cats were just as happy.

But the nightmares came, and the depression continued. The pain kept coursing through my veins.

And then…I saw a man. It was odd. I didn’t expect anyone to come through a restaurant that most people would eat and chatter the night until it became dawn. His dark hair and dim eyes made a recognition in my brain.

_I wonder who hurt him. His poor face, I hope someone can heal those wounds._

_“That’s because you don’t understand human emotions, darling.”_

_Why does it hurt…_ so much _?_

It doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real. Only the sweet, forever sleep of death can be the answer to all of this.

_Nigetai…_

But when I saw you, I couldn’t understand why I felt the need to help you. I half, deep in my bleeding gaping hole of a heart, wanted to join you. Why did I want to help you, only to stare at the despairing and empty eyes that I knew far too well? Those eyes, those shaking, trembling hands, as if reflecting the agony within yourself.

Why…am I waking? For so many times, I found it hard to breathe. I don’t have anything to…contribute.

I am a terrible human being, disgusting.

So then why…are my eyes open?

My eyes are trying to reach yours, wherever they may be. Or I am I dreaming this, and the living nightmare is returning a shade seconds away?

My eyes open. Screaming to go back. Go back.

But there is nowhere I can go.

* * *

 

End of **Part I:** **苦しみ**


	15. Pressure Sores

_Pressure Sores_

 

Sherlock awoke to find his mind empty. In any other circumstance, the dark haired man would find himself calm and relish the blissful silence. Sherlock’s mind was often likened to a steam engine, thoughts and mindless anecdotes from his thirty-five years colliding together to form, as Mycroft once snidely put it, “a mass of unwanted data and useless facts.”

His Mind Palace made the information stored in his mind clean. It wasn’t what John often thought of his Mind Palace as – a work of genius that kept files of significant data hidden neatly away, although, to some extent, it was that. A great portion of his Mind Palace was devoted to wings separated by the specialty each had. Science, history, the entire history of crimes committed in England since the eighteenth century, and…philosophy.

Sometimes his thoughts would splutter out random data at any given moment, although Sherlock had taught himself through sheer willpower to not open his mouth.

But this silence…was deafening. It was a maddening stagnant horror of emptiness. The silence would not allow any thoughts to come through, not because of the small calm Sherlock sometimes experienced, but because no thoughts existed. The hole of nothingness, or the _abyss,_ became a place in his mind where no thoughts came because the temperature was beyond freezing. Nothing was felt in the abyss.

Nothing at all.

Such was the state Sherlock found himself in when he woke. His senses were blurry and he could not tell from his limited surroundings, of where he was. The limbs attached to his body, and the faint beating of his heart were all functioning in the same they had been the last time he was conscious. He was in a bed, and covered in sheets. His skin was no longer cold, and the garments he had gotten at the hospital were still covering his body.

The only difference now was that a part of his midsection was covered with medical tape and gauze.

 _This is not a hospital._ He would know. He hadn’t spent this much time in a hospital bed since Mary. A twinge of pain originating from his side caused him to squeeze his eyes from opening. _No…sentiment clouding my judgement. What must Mycroft think of me now, forgetting such an important data point?_

_“The facts, Sherlock. Do keep up.”_

If he had been able to, Sherlock would have touched the bruises that marked his neck where Culverton Smith had touched him. It wasn’t what the other emergency personal had perceived, clouded by _their_ need to save someone as if it would stroke their ego and neglected sense of happiness. The female and male, obviously thought John was the perpetrator. _Obviously._ Why else had he collapsed like a helpless little doll? It brought shame to Sherlock as his heart filled with an unknown emotion as he remembered the harsh words John had told him.

Sherlock hated labels. Originally, labels were used as kinship and proof of bonds. Society forced labels upon other people that did not meet the status quo, derogatory and hate filling in the blank spaces for those unwanted until they were mere words to normal _people_.

Yes, Sherlock Holmes was gay and proud of it, much to the horror to John. How many times had Sherlock had swallowed an uncomfortable sigh as John protested in the six years they knew each other, that they weren’t together?

But he didn’t care for any other labels, and didn’t care if people used them to describe him. _High functioning sociopath…ooh that was a description dating back to uni._

When John had called him a junkie, it felt as Sherlock’s entire body was a few moments away from disappearing all together. He wanted to run away from those words, wanted to run away from –

 _No, no, NO!_ Sherlock screamed to himself as his mind remained on the memory of John in the hospital room. _There’s nothing possible to suggest that I wanted, in that disgusting moment of sentiment, that I wanted to run away from John! Never, would I run away from John!_

His fingers toyed with the edge of the sheet. The trembling fingers that had once played the violin inched closer and closer to the wound on his side.

_He’s my…my every…thing._

Despite Sherlock’s overpouring thoughts concerning John, the man had an image of himself walking at the end of the emptiness, approaching a door to his Mind Palace forbidden to him.

_“Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”_

_I can’t open that door._

Sherlock didn’t waste sentiment feeling woe for his unsuccessful attempt at ending his life. He did remember the girl who had stopped him. She had dark hair mirroring his own, and body characteristics indicating that she was of Afro-Indian descent. A petite young woman around the age of twenty-two with no indication of belonging to any of the London universities and inside an occupied restaurant with no personal belongings…and many other deductions that Sherlock had said that night. Why had she saved his own life when it was clear she too wanted to die?

Was that simple conversation he had with her enough for her to risk her life?

Sherlock vaguely wondered where she was. There was no indication that there was another occupied person in the room he was in. Perhaps she had not saved his life, and this was a drug induced dream by Smith, and he was actually dead.

“Keep your hands off it,” he rasped to no one. The words were hard to speak, and Sherlock had to clear his throat to pronounce the words.

“Good,” stated a familiar voice. “You’re awake.”

Sherlock resisted his body’s temptation to immediately turn his body to where the speaker was coming from, and sighed. It would do no good to harm his body, especially since there was a heavy amount of gauze near his abdominal area. _Compared to Mary’s wound, this is going to troublesome._

“Why are you here?” Sherlock called. “This isn’t a London, and this isn’t a hospital. Mycroft,” he spat with venom, “sent you here to keep an eye on me with his fat nose, didn’t he?”

Dr. Hijazi didn’t respond to Sherlock’s bait. Normally, kidnapped victim would start their tirade against Mycroft’s “controlling” and “concerns.” But no, this man didn’t seem deterred. In that small instance, the man reminded Sherlock of John.

“We are in a place called Sozo. I have only been here three days, Mr. Holmes, so I do not know very much.”

“Sozo,” Sherlock intoned, intent on driving this man crazy to make him leave. “It is derived from Greek. Most pedestrian people associate the Greek word for heal as _therapeuo_ , which translates as therapeutic, or healing, in modern terms. Doctors always pay attention to the physical aspect. But this word only is applied to physical healing, curing the diseases and ailments that humans possess. Of course, people are always so concerned over the physical health, paying no attention to mental or _emotional_ toll egos have, thereby erasing the known term of the word healing or restoring health. Based on such a term used and your obtuse way of telling me you know where you are but are instructed to not to tell me, we are in a mental health facility, aren’t we?”

“Now, just leave…leave me.”


	16. Not Yours, Not Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helem is introduced to the mental health facility, and breaks down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be way longer. These next two months are going to be very busy, as I will be getting ready to move to Japan and starting school soon, so I do not know when I will update again.
> 
> I hope this chapter suffices for the possible hiatus!

_Not Yours, Not Mine_

 

Helem was tapping his fingers nervously on the plush red chair he was sitting in, the tapping a habit he had gotten accustomed to in England. The office, of which he had been called to by a woman wearing civilian clothing as the doctor paced around one of his patient’s rooms twenty minutes earlier after arriving in the place, was strangely bare. Compared to a regular doctor’s office with a crowned and numerous luxurious diplomas, photos, and personal items, there was simply a dusty bookshelf on the right side with plump volumes. A lone cumbersome blue file was situated across a modest desk with pens and pencils filed neatly across each other. There was no other indication that that a living human being worked and lived here. It was almost as if Helem had been transported to the pre-World War I colonial occupation of his country. How would his parents feel if they knew he was inside an office occupied by the former colonial slaver?

“So sorry I’m late,” a man panted as the door to the office slammed open. He was, Helem observed, unassuming, and wore square-rimmed glasses that were perched across his nose. The man was wearing an oatmeal color jumper and dark blue jeans. Dark brown eyes warmed at the sight of Helem, and the only indication of the man’s nervousness was the fact that he ran two fingers through his dark hair. The man took out his hand outward toward Helem and explained he was the director of a mental health facility known as Sozo.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Helem felt his entire body burn in shame and hesitantly shook the man’s hand, not willing to meet his eyes.

“I am Dr. Helem Hijazi,” the younger doctor stated with a slightly soft timber. His eyes wandered over to the desk with the huge blue file and immediately thought that Raza and Aziza would love to play in this room. _Are they worried?_ Helem thought the anxiety digging into his stomach at the thought of the twins being alone in their small London apartment for _three days_ with only two kindly neighbors to look after them. “I don’t why I am exactly here but –”

“My name is Yuri, Helem. Mycroft Holmes explained the situation to me.”

Instead of comforting the man, Helem felt hot anger thumbing in his heart at the mention of that name. He remembered the aloof government minister, complete with his arrogance and umbrella. The anger he felt towards the Englishman paled compared to the anger churning in his stomach.

As if Yuri hadn’t seen the dark look across Helem’s face, the dark-haired man explained what this place was. The idea of this mental health facility was created by Yuri when he had been a med student. Many places, the psychiatrist had explained to Helem who had no knowledge of psychiatry or mental health, that the medicine of psychiatry was flooded by bureaucracy and a mental health crisis that did not have enough doctors to treat people. Prospective patients, especially adolescents, died waiting to see a doctor specializing in the least popular of the medical fields. “It isn’t like surgery,” Yuri explained solemnly. “Surgeons are able to do what they do through physical diagnosis. However, the mind and the soul of each patient that come through here is a mystery. How can a person go into this field with the knowledge that they won’t know if the patient they treated for years may not be okay?”

The medium-sized Victoria-era mansion had been a symbol of the people living in the English countryside. Yuri didn’t explain how he came into possession of this Victoria-era mansion, just listing the fact that there house was converted into a mental health facility for people with no place to turn to. The Victorian house had sixty-four rooms in total, complete with two gigantic kitchens and twenty acers of grounds. Three cleaning staff came to clean the rooms once a week, but they were forbidden to enter an occupied room. The patients, once they consented to staying here, were required to clean up after themselves, or until they had piled enough junk to have the desire to clean. Or even move. To Helem’s surprise, Yuri was not directly involved in the patient’s therapy. Instead, a staff of thirty psychiatrists and psychologists were in control of their patient’s well-being.

“The main desire is independence,” was the last words the director had told Helem. “To be free from the burdens of their minds in the goal, in an untraditional way. Please do not yell. It’s not our journey to make, Dr. Hijazi. It is theirs.”

Now Helem was staring at the patient he had seen in life and death, staring at the wall listlessly. Compared to what he had experienced in the past twenty-four hours, a theory of where _Sherlock_ had known where exactly where he was only came as a minor moment of curiosity.

“I can’t leave you here. Officially now, you and the young woman who came with you are my patients.” The former refugee tried to see Sherlock’s face, which was turned away from you. “Mr. Holmes said –”

The patient’s lips turned into the beginnings of a sneer, and almost immediately his face turned toward Helem’s. Dark strands of his ebony hair curled around his forehead, and the marks across his neck where some _human_ had squeezed made Sherlock look as frightening and weak as he looked to Helem. The heavy gauze over his abdomen trembled from the force of Sherlock’s rage.

“Mycroft,” the man spat with as much distaste and loathing, “ _just_ couldn’t resist picking his obscene nose into my business, leaving me _alone.”_

Helem sorted his words carefully, an uncomfortable feeling blossoming against his chest like a gunshot wound. “Your business almost got you killed. I understand,” he added hastily, “that you wanted to die –”

“No,” Sherlock whispered almost morosely. His eyes were vacant, the blue irises shining dull ice across the plain white wall. “You don’t understand. I. Want. To. Die.”

There was nothing in his voice that suggested any emotion. The scorn and hot anger at the mention of his brother, Mycroft, had distinguished into the ashes of the nothingness of a man who wished… Helem resisted the impulse to close his eyes against the images of death, his parents screaming and blood coating against the rubble of his former home. Clutching his baby siblings against his chest, their tiny howls echoing against his skull. _After all I have seen, I still don’t understand…_

_Why anyone would want to harm another being._

A dry “Why?” was the only word he could ask.

“Your life is not your own. How can that be?” The hollow voice in Sherlock’s raps wouldn’t leave Helem be. “Taking your own life…taking it from whom?” It was a question framed as one would as if it was possible, not one of deep pain. Helem felt a lump rise in his throat, his once still fingers curling, burning moons in his palms. “Once it’s over, it’s not yours who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everyone else.”

“And that’s why it’s so important!” Helem had broken the only rule in Yuri’s mansion – or whatever the hell this _place_ was. “To live, in a world where nothing can harm you again!”

Sherlock’s face contorted, making his wounds appear even more painful. _Who could have done this to you?_

“Oh please,” Sherlock stated with mock sympathy. “Stop this blubbering mess. No one did this to me.” Although the rebuke was aimed at Helem, the sharp words fell on deaf ears.

“How can that be, Sherlock?” Helem almost whispered, emotionally overwhelmed from the wealth of self-loathing and despair the man was experiencing. “You’re the center of someone’s world, someone who will miss you. That girl, she saved you.”

Helem had forgotten what it was like to be this type of despair. He didn’t have the luxury when his parents died, their house ruined, and with him in charge of taking care of his baby siblings. Even while fleeing Syria, he hadn’t felt despair. Not yet. But this despair, or feeling that Sherlock…and the other patients were experiencing, didn’t reach his mind. How could…someone wish they didn’t exist?

Sherlock had no reaction to Helem’s spoken words. In fact, he didn’t seem to be aware of the other man’s turmoil.

“I deserve this. This situation…” he said with a lonely baritone,  waving his left shaking hand, “is of my own fault and choosing. No one misses me.”

 _But you don't deserve this, Sherlock._ Helem was ashamed to feel anger heighten his senses again, burrowing in his lungs and chest cavity as his mind screamed at the image of the lone man in the hospital bed with wounds brought by another human being, and speaking to him as if this was okay.

“I…won’t miss me.”

Helem had forgotten Yuri’s first rule, and realizing the extent of Sherlock’s words, a sob crouched at his throat.

_What am I even doing here? He wants to die, and there's nothing I can do about it._


End file.
